How do you explain a great battle to an illiterate people living in the 11th century? By using the multimedia of the time: embroidered pictures on fabric over 200 feet long.
The Bayeux Tapestry was sewn most likely by an order of nuns to celebrate/advertise the conquest of the English by the French Normans back in 1066. (About 10 feet of the final scene are missing.) On it, we saw in slightly faded colors, tableaus of knights fighting, horses galloping in formation and servants cooking and serving food, among other scenes of daily life. Latin narration was sewn in to appeal to the literate set. The entire effort was preserved behind glass in a darkened room. Despite warnings against flash, a photographer used hers constantly while snapping pictures, to the annoyance of visitors. No guards were around and just that once, I felt like doing the American thing by yelling at her to stop.
The museum also showed artifacts and models of the era, including an impressive HO-scale landscape of a fortified manor and village. A short film, with French and English versions, provided background information. A full-scale model of an attack boat provided the only sanctioned photographic opportunity, in the outside courtyard.
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