AMERICANALMANAC (Charles McAdams) - British Museum curator says Bayeux Tapestry scene hides a royal affair that could undermine the Norman Conquest
A British Museum curator argues that a mysterious scene in the nearly 1,000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry depicts a royal sex scandal designed to discredit William the Conqueror's claim to the English throne. Michael Lewis, a curator at the British Museum, laid out his case on the HistoryExtra podcast: a single embroidered vignette, a clergyman touching a […] The post British Museum curator says Bayeux Tapestry scene hides a royal affair that could undermine the Norman Conquest appeared first on American Almanac .
A British Museum curator argues that a mysterious scene in the nearly 1,000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry depicts a royal sex scandal designed to discredit William the Conqueror's claim to the English throne. Michael Lewis, a curator at the British Museum, laid out his case on the HistoryExtra podcast: a single embroidered vignette, a clergyman touching a noblewoman's face while a naked man watches from below, is not decoration or allegory. It is, Lewis contends, a deliberate smear against Emma of Normandy, the queen whose bloodline gave William his justification for invading England in 1066. If Lewis is right, the tapestry's anonymous creators stitched a political attack into one of the most famous artifacts in Western history, one that sat…Open