…And All That: Bayeux Tapestry The Epic Poem By Martin Kiszko

The Bayeux Tapestry, a seventy-metre long embroidery, which tells the story of the French invasion of Britain and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, is a masterpiece. It has also come to the UK for the first time in nearly one thousand years, to be displayed in the British Museum, from September ’26 to July ’27, and tickets to see it are selling fast. The Norman invasion was thought to be the result of Harold’s betrayal of William of Normandy after the death of Edward the Confessor and the tapestry gives some of the background as well as details of the battle itself, and the most famous moment of all, Harold’s death.

As well as historical detail of the events, the tapestry also affords glimpses of eleventh century weaponry and armour, farming, cooking and seafaring as well as hidden depictions of some of Aesop’s Fables and mythical creatures such as dragons and centaurs.

How fortuitous then that Martin Kiszko, ‘the UK’s Green Poet’, has released ‘Bayeux Tapestry The Epic Poem’, written to celebrate jointly, the thousandth anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror and the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry in London. The foreword describes it as a ‘fun and detailed textual and illustrative shorthand of the tapestry’ which invites ‘tapestry detectives of all ages [to] make their own deductions about the mysterious, speculative and incomplete sections of the tapestry’s story’.

The political machinations of the time, the skirmishes, the negotiations and the betrayals all feature.Kiszko has clearly done his homework. Once again, what may purport to be simply an entertaining piece, is far more. The descriptions of the tapestry itself are insightful and the historical detail of events both raise and answer questions so that the end result is far, far more than a simple rendering of a story we all thought we knew, that of King Harold getting shot in the eye by an arrow. (And that ‘factual detail’ is apparently questioned in the stitching anyway.)

Edward the Confessor was childless and his death brought forth several claimants to the throne, which happened more commonly at that time. Harold was crowned King. The appearance of Halley’s comet which features in the tapestry could have been seen, however, to be ‘A dire omen of what may lie ahead’ as Kiszko explains, since William would ‘take that usurper down’.

The political machinations of the time, the skirmishes, the negotiations and the betrayals all feature. Harold had promised to support William’s claim to the throne but when the time came, he took the throne for himself. William, so it appears, did not play fair, among other things reneging on guarantees to free Harold’s relatives, perhaps to keep Harold ‘under his thumb’.

While the names of Harold and William may seem familiar enough to the modern reader, the older names, no longer used, have a poetry of their own and although this epic poem does not take long to read, it benefits from greater study. It is, to quote Professor Ronald Hutton, ‘A skilful and enjoyable poetic representation of the world’s most famous tapestry.’

This thoughtful and lengthy series of rhyming four-line stanzas is beautifully enhanced with illustrations on every page by Richard Parker Crook, whose work cannot be underestimated. Words and pictures combine to create a very satisfying book to suit a broad age range of readers and inquisitive minds.


Bayeux Tapestry The Epic Poem is published by Martin Kiszko Publishers