Textiles as Historical Texts

In Weaving the Word, Kathryn Sullivan Kruger, a professor of English, examines the link between written texts and woven textiles. Kruger asserts that before stories were recorded through written text, cloth preserved and communicated these important social messages. Kruger argues for expanding the idea of literary history to include women’s role in transmitting traditions, stories, and myths via fabric. By including textiles in our study of literature and history, we will find many female authors. She also maintains that during times when weaving was analogous to storytelling, “women’s endeavors were equal to culture and were not considered beneath culture or marginal to it.” Cloth tells stories, records histories, and shapes culture in a synergistic interaction that makes it impossible to disentangle the effect of one on the other.

The Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th-century embroidered account of the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror, is a clear example of textiles as historical texts. While the events of this epic battle are enshrined in woolen thread on linen, no one knows who stitched it. An 18th-century legend has it that Queen Matilda, William the Conqueror’s wife, carried out the embroidery with her ladies in waiting. While a romantic notion, this was certainly not the case. Most scholars believe that a group of Anglo-Saxon embroiderers stitched it near Canterbury, England. All the surviving evidence indicates that only women in early medieval England embroidered and that it was a highly regarded female occupation. However, there is no known convention of women embroidering on such a large scale — the tapestry is 70 meters long — or for such an important political purpose. This has led some to speculate that perhaps it was not the work of women, and Bayeux Tapestry Museum curator Antoine Verney has suggested that men could have been trained in embroidery to execute this important royal commission, potentially in Normandy, since the tapestry resided in the Bayeux Cathedral for centuries.

Textile archaeologist Alexandra Lester-Makin, an expert in early medieval embroidery and the Bayeux Tapestry, disputes this idea, noting that the needlework on the tapestry is highly skilled. She thinks it unlikely that it was the work of a team who had just recently learned to embroider. There is evidence of female embroidery workshops in England in the 11th century, indicating the likelihood that the tapestry was created by women. A skilled embroiderer would have organized and overseen the production process to maintain consistency and coordinate the many embroiderers working on the piece at the same time. Many women’s hands would have also been involved in spinning and weaving the linen and spinning and dyeing the wool embroidery thread. Notably, the style of embroidery used on the tapestry is meant to conserve thread, likely due to a firsthand awareness of how very labor intensive it is to produce from having spun wool themselves. The thread wraps around the back of the work only in short couching stitches, so the majority of the wool is laid down in long stitches on just the front surface of the work. This style of embroidery is a relatively quick way to fill in large spaces, much like painting, and evokes the brush strokes of illuminated manuscripts.

The women doing the embroidery work may have had some creative license over the messages that were communicated and immortalized in the tapestry. Some experts on the tapestry suggest that while the main story running horizontally across the center was dictated and likely sketched by men to record the details of the conquest, the borders were left to the discretion of the embroiderers, who included animals — often dragons, lions, and griffins — and scenes from Aesop’s fables alluding to ideals of medieval morality. Certain fables are embroidered more than once, like “The Fox and the Crow” and “The Wolf and the Crane.” They are drawn differently and appear to be embroidered by different hands, suggesting that each embroiderer was likely unaware that another had chosen to stitch the same image or scene. The fables in the borders can be read as commentary on the main action of the tapestry — perhaps a way for the Anglo-Saxons to tell their version of the story in the margins of the Norman tale.

Lester-Makin expressed that as much as she would like to believe this was the case, she is not sure that women would have been given such freedom over the border content. However, that doesn’t mean that their experiences and perspectives were not included. “I think that even if they didn’t necessarily have free reign, there are still areas of expression that can be witnessed. This is a witness to what they have gone through or know that somebody went through … there are other ways … to read the tapestry and of seeing the embroiderers within it.” She called attention to a scene where an Anglo-Saxon woman is holding a child’s hand as Norman soldiers set fire to her home. “Whether that was chosen freely by the embroiderers or not, that is still a commentary and if you think of women embroidering that, and you never know what they may have witnessed or had done to them. That’s a harrowing scene.” Similarly, the borders show the bodies of dead Anglo-Saxon soldiers having their armor pulled off or being devoured by animals. “That kind of thing happened and … you can imagine someone stitching that and going, ‘oh my god, that happened to my brother, my cousin, my dad, my husband.’ ” Whether or not the women chose any of the tapestry’s content, they stitched it, and prior to that, they may have lived it. The tapestry is a testament to their experience preserved in a language they spoke.

In our interview at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum, Verney stated that the genius of the tapestry was that it was the first known graphic representation of a current event in northern Europe, adding that if it was not captured in this object, the history may be lost today. He said that the technique of embroidering wool yarn on linen cloth was likely chosen because it was a relatively quick method and made it easy to share the story of the event on both sides of the English Channel to a largely illiterate public. It may have also served a political purpose. It was a way to integrate the Anglo-Saxon tradition of needlework into the story of the Norman conquest of England and assure the English that their traditions were valued and would be preserved under this new rule.

French historian R. Howard Bloch calls the embroidery of the Bayeux Tapestry “a powerful vehicle for cultural memory at a time when even the most powerful lords were illiterate.” Janet Catherine Berlo wrote in response to Bloch’s statement, “I position it as ‘a powerful vehicle for cultural memory’ of a different sort — a cultural memory for those of us who seek to understand the long history of the poetics of embroidery, and our places in it.” It is clear which history was thought valuable to preserve at the time — the content of the tapestry — and which was not — the process of its creation. Women looking to find their place in the “long history of the poetics of embroidery” often discover that it is a game of hide and seek. Even when the work remains, the hands that made it are so often invisible. Like so many stories of women throughout history, the creation story of the Bayeux Tapestry seems indelibly lost.

Eight hundred years after the original Bayeux Tapestry was finished, a group of women in Victorian England created a full-scale replica of it, now on display at Britain’s Reading Museum. The effort was spearheaded by Elizabeth Wardle, who in 1885 organized 39 members of the Leek Embroidery Society so that Britain could have its own copy of this important historic artifact. It took just one year for the women to re-create the entire tapestry, working from pictures that had been handcolored by archivists at what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It seems that these women were working to find their own place in embroidery history grounded in the Victorian-era “medieval revival,” which spurred a renaissance of medieval art and architecture. Their focused effort reflects an interest in their British heritage, the tradition of English needlework, and a wish to meaningfully contribute to those legacies. Unlike the anonymous stitchers of the original tapestry, these women added their names below the sections they worked on, escaping the obscurity of their medieval counterparts. Their signatures show that some women worked alone for long stretches of the tapestry, while others worked closely together on a section. Seeing three women’s names running the length of a four-foot section, we can imagine them huddled together talking and stitching.

Another difference between the Victorian re-creation and the original tapestry reflects the cultural mores of the time. In the original tapestry, there are several naked men, and male horses are depicted with anatomical accuracy. The Leek embroiderers omitted these “racy” details, though through no fault of their own. The men working in the museum archives felt it was improper to send such images to a group of British ladies. They “cleaned up” the photos that the women then faithfully copied.

More recently, a community project on the island of Alderney, in the British Channel, took inspiration from the tapestry but had a different aim: to finish it. The last panel of the original work is famously missing, its story lost to time. Historically, what naturally follows the Battle of Hastings, where the tapestry currently ends, is the coronation of William the Conqueror as William I of England. Kate Russell, the librarian on Alderney, spearheaded the project and together with artist Pauline Black imagined the ending and created the plan for the tapestry in 2012. Four hundred and sixteen people ranging in age from 4 to 100 contributed stitches to the final piece. Along with a large contingent of Alderney islanders and notably King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, stitchers came from nearly every continent of the world. Russell told me not a day went by that there wasn’t at least one person stitching while the library was open and often several people working together: “During that entire year, there was never any rancor, tension, disagreement, squabbling or any other sort of discord. Lots of stitching; no bitching. I imagine it must have been similar for the original stitchers, too, though the trauma they were living through in that torn-up country that England had become must have meant an entirely different atmosphere.”

Fran Harvey, a local resident and principal stitcher, said: “England was never the same after the Norman invasion. And I don’t think Alderney, as a community, will ever be the same again after so many people came forward and put their stitches into this amazing work. It is a landmark in Alderney’s modern history, and I feel sure that everybody involved in it, just like us, is very proud … The Tapestry … is like a thread that runs between Normandy and Alderney. It is almost a thousand years long, and today it brings us closer together.” Russell was awarded a British Empire Medal by Queen Elizabeth II for services to history and culture. Now, as a tourist destination on Alderney, the tapestry illustrates the cultural heritage of the community and carries the legacy forward.

Today, Mia Hansson, a Swedish seamstress living in England, is working to single-handedly re-create the Bayeux Tapestry. While most Bayeux Tapestry projects reflect a connection to British and French culture, Hansson’s embroidery pieces are motivated by her connection to a culture of needlework — an answer to Berlo’s call “to understand the long history of the poetics of embroidery” and her place in it. She plans to finish her Bayeux Tapestry replica just in time for a major restoration of the original tapestry, which the French Ministry of Culture has scheduled to begin in 2028. The restoration effort has been led thus far by a team of seven female textile conservationists who have assessed the areas in need of repair. A one-thousand-year­-old tapestry presents unique challenges. Because no one has worked on anything like this before, restorers will have to learn as they go. Hansson is helping to keep this object of cultural memory alive and in circulation even if the original can no longer be displayed for a time.

While stitching the tapestry, she was “forced to learn the history, almost against [her] will,” noting that history is the only subject she ever fell asleep in. But her real connection to the work is with the original stitchers and her grandmother, who, though deceased, is always looking over her shoulder to make sure the back side of the work is neat. She has come to know the original stitchers of the tapestry quite well through her close study and faithful re-creation of their work: “Although I often get frustrated with them and the way they chose to stitch, which I now have to replicate, I feel strangely protective over them. There were reasons why they did things in a certain way and I don’t always understand … I can complain and want to put my veto in, ask questions and want to suggest other ways of doing things, but … I want to give the women the benefit of doubt.”

Hansson said she can feel the tensions between the embroiderers who worked closely together and likely for long hours with poor lighting, as though there are ghosts in the fabric. Their varying skill levels are clear from the stitching. Some appear less patient than others: “There are places where stitches overlap, where none of the women wanted to give in. In other places, there is a gap, where the women have failed to connect their work. Why? Was there an argument? Was it a simple oversight?” Unlike the harmonious working environment depicted in the stitching of the Alderney panel or the Victorian re-creation, Hansson imagines “the air being thick with emotion at times” while stitching the original tapestry. 

Choosing to re-create the Bayeux Tapestry has connected Hansson to a community of people interested in the tapestry and given her a role in a broader cultural and historical conversation. She gives talks to schoolchildren, women’s groups, historical reenactors, and embroidery guilds. She has a designated dress for many of these talks; the material was handwoven by a friend, and she sewed the garment with her mother. She added a 17th-century pocket to wear on top of the dress, which she embroidered with images from the tapestry. During these talks, Hansson said, “I step into a role and kind of become part of the tapestry. I live and breathe it with every ounce of my body and soul. It’s quite magical.” She jokes that her gravestone will read, “The woman who became the Bayeux Tapestry,” as though she herself had become a carrier of cultural memory, an embodiment of the original embroiderers’ hands and minds a thousand years later.

Excerpted from With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories. Copyright © 2025 by Nicole Nehrig. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

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