Book dossier

1066

by Andrew Bridgeford

"Every schoolchild is familiar with the Bayeux Tapestry. For nine hundred years, it has preserved the glory of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. It relates with bawdy humour, sensitivity ad suspense the drama which culminated in the Battle of Hastings and the death of King Harold. Comprised of a series of connected panels reaching almost the length of a football pitch, its exquisite detail make this one of the most important historical documents of all time. The starling image of the mortally wounded King Harold, his eye pierced by the arrow, is instantly recognisable as the moment of Duke William's victory - the last and irrevocable conquest of England by a foreign army, commemorated and celebrated by the famous tapestry." "But is the tapestry a straightforward work of Norman propaganda? In a brilliant piece of detective interpretation, Andrew Bridgeford looks closely at the narrative contained within it and discovers a wealth of new information. He shows us how, under the Norman's noses, the viewpoint of the defeated Anglo-Saxons was ingeniously encoded into the threads. The tapestry contains an extraordinary secret tale which has gone unnoticed for centuries; an account of the final years of Anglo-Saxon England quite different from the Norman version of events. In the midst of it all the central character is a mysterious French count whose own claim to the English throne rivalled Duke William's. A world of ambitious warrior bishops, court dwarfs, ruthless knights and powerful women is conjured up as the book moves towards some astonishing conclusions, 1066 overturns received wisdom on the tapestry and brings startling new light to a pivotal chapter of English history."--Jacket.