For Love of History

For those who are interested, I am still reading history; all kinds of history.  Currently I am reading two books.  A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3500 BC – 1603 AD and Monuments Men.  One is the actually interesting read from Simon Schama on how the English came to be and the other about to release this week as what will probably be a block buster movie on a corps of men during WWI who went throughout Europe saving priceless works of art from the Nazis.  You wouldn’t expect there would be much overlap between the two …if any at all.  But this is the joy of reading extensively in a particular genre.  

So I’m reading Monuments Men and reach a point in the story where shortly after the liberation of Paris in 1944 from the Nazis one of the Monuments Men visits the Louvre in Paris which had suffered a loss of priceless treasures to the Nazis.  When they reopen within a few weeks of liberation their center piece is a tapestry called the Bayeux Tapestry.  Ever heard of it?  Me neither.  The Monuments Men doesn’t go into much detail except that you get the impression that it is long and must be very special based on how they talk about it.  

Switch gears.  I’m also reading at the same time A History of Britain.  I’m in a chapter called ‘The Conquest’ (leading up to William the Conqueror’s invasion of Britain and the Battle of Hastings) and what are they talking about, the Bayeux Tapestry!  So cool for those of us nerds who love this kind of thing.  

It turns out the tapestry is actually an embroidered cloth, 230’ long, probably created by women in Normandy between 1066-1072 that tells the story of King Harold and Duke William and their fight for the British Isles.  What is fascinating about this is the tapestry’s history. 

Let me share. 

• After is creation between 1066-1072 the next reference to it surfaces in 1476 in an inventory of art at the Bayeux Cathedral.
• 1562 it survives a sacking of the Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy.
• 1792 it is used to cover military wagons during the French Revolution before it is rescued by a lawyer in Bayeux
• 1803 is moved to Paris
•  1870 survives the Franco-Prussian war
• 1944 is moved to Paris by the Nazis
• 1945 returned to Bayeux Cathedral

What a remarkable story.  And questions, questions, questions….how in the world did it survive the Normandy Invasion of WWII?  I know one of Hitler’s objectives of WWII was to capture as much art work throughout Europe as possible and move it to Berlin, but how in the world do you do that without damage to the piece?

Want more information?  Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry    Some day I will get to Bayeux to see it.