This lecture is about nationalist appropriation of the Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th century artistic monument which visualizes the events of the successful history-changing invasion of England in 1066 by William, Duke of Normandy. Disappearing shortly after its creation, when the Embroidery re-emerged in the early 18th century it was quickly claimed by both the French and English as their national monument. With the nationalist movements of the 19th century, the term “Viking” became equated with Scandinavian culture in general and attention was drawn to Scandinavian elements seen in the images on the Tapestry. Between 1939 and 1945, the Ahnenerbe, the Nazi research organization studying early Germanic culture, conducted a research project to uncover evidence in the Bayeux Tapestry to prove the Norman invaders of England were not French, but had retained their early Viking heritage. The Tapestry was declared a German historical monument. The idea of a Viking link with the Bayeux Tapestry was revitalized with the discovery of the Shuldelev ships in Roskilde fjord in 1962. Subsequently, a major exhibition organized at the National Museum of Denmark, which travelled to several Norwegian locales, helped establish the Tapestry as a monument of Viking times.
Shirley Ann Brown, Professor emerita of Art History at York University, Toronto, has published widely on various aspects of the Bayeux Tapestry, as a monument of medieval times, and about its later history. She is currently working on a book detailing the Nazi’s interest in appropriating it as their own, in the period 1939–1945. She is a member of the international advisory committee for the planning of the new Bayeux Tapestry Museum. She was instrumental in discovering the surviving WWII drawings produced by the Nazi research team and arranging for their donation by the Jeschke family to the City of Bayeux in April 2019.
Hva med en tur til det sagnomsuste Bayeux?
Et brodert teppe, over 70 meter langt, med billedmotiver som forteller om Vilhelm Erobreren, og dessuten like mye om farkoster, dyr og planter, byggeskikk, reiser, slag og utrustninger, ja, til og med Halleys komet. Alle har hørt om det, men hvem har sett det? Collegium Medievale ønsker å arrangere en medlemstur til Bayeux helgen 24.–26. april 2020. Allerede nå begynner planleggingen!
Etter foredraget ønsker vi å få innspill, tanker og ideer til innhold for turen fra dere. Vi vet at det er masse kunnskap om Bayeux og det unike broderte teppet også blant våre medlemmer. Kanskje vil vi be noen av dere om å bidra inn i planleggingen?