1066 - The hidden history of the Bayeux Tapestry

1066. The hidden history of the Bayeux tapestry. Fine, very well-preserved copy. For more than nine hundred years the Bayeux Tapestry?one of the world’s greatest historical documents and artistic achievements?has preserved the story of one of history’s greatest dramas: the Norman Conquest of England, culminating in the death of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Historians have held for centuries that the majestic tapestry?almost 300 feet in length?trumpets the glory of William the Conqueror and the victorious Normans. But is this true? In 1066, Andrew Bridgeford reveals a very different story that reinterprets and recasts the most decisive year in English history. Reading the tapestry as if it were a written text, examining each scene with fresh eyes, Bridgeford discovers a wealth of new information subversively and ingeniously encoded in the threads, which appears to undermine the Norman point of view while presenting a secret tale undetected for centuries?an account of the final years of Anglo-Saxon England quite different from the Norman version of events. In the midst of it all is a mysterious French nobleman?Count Eustace II of Boulogne, descended from Charlemagne?whose own claim to the English throne rivaled Duke William’s. While building his case, Bridgeford brings to life the turbulent eleventh century in western Europe, a world of ambitious warrior bishops, court dwarfs, ruthless knights, and powerful women. 1066 offers readers a rare surprise?a book that reconsiders a long-accepted masterpiece and chain of events?and sheds new light on a pivotal chapter in English history.