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Medieval Comic Strips - Ep 18
460 Plays11 months ago
In this month’s episode we take a very short trip back in time, because we’re looking at the Bayeux Tapestry. Joining me is professional embroiderer and textile archaeologist Dr Alexandra Makin, and together we chat about the story and context of this intriguing object. Who made the tapestry and why? How does it compare to other embroidery of the time? And can I persuade Alex to get off the fence and say something outrageous? Tune in to find out!
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to: https://www.archpodnet.com/teabreak/18
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to Tea Break Time Travel, where every month we look at a different archaeological object and take you on a journey into their past.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to episode 18 of Tea Break Time Travel. I am your host, Matilda Ziebrecht, and today I'm savoring a winter almond tea, because even though it was ridiculously warm the last month or two, it's suddenly decided that it's winter, at least with us. I don't know how it is with you. And joining me
Meet Dr. Alexandra Mackin-Mackin
00:00:34
Speaker
on my tea break today is professional embroiderer, Dr. Alexandra Mackin-Mackin. I realised I forgot to ask you how to pronounce your name.
00:00:41
Speaker
Making. Making, making. That is a great name for a creative person. Sorry, that's fantastic. I'm sorry, I'm sure you've heard that so many times before. A couple of times I should tell my husband's family. And are you also on tea today, Alan? I am. I'm on a fair trade, an English breakfast today. I undernared whether to go for salon or not, but I plumped for English breakfast. English breakfast. And are you a classic British English breakfast with milk or?
00:01:09
Speaker
Oh no, no milk in any tea whatsoever. Okay, interesting.
00:01:16
Speaker
I've said this already on this podcast, I was always given slack by my English relatives when they said, what, you just wanted black with sugar? Now I have it with milk. No, I am a bit of an oddball in that sense. It goes back to my parents. For one lent we gave up sugar from tea and never went back. And for another lent we gave up milk from tea and they went back to milk, but I just couldn't after that.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, black tea ever since, yeah. But do you have milk and other things still or are you not feeling it? No, I'm fairly milk free if I'm doing all this. Okay, also like chocolate and stuff or just the raw milk? Occasionally I'll have chocolate but I'm more of a crisps person than chocolates. Oh, interesting, more savoury than sweet. Yeah, definitely.
00:02:04
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for joining me. And as I mentioned
Journey from Tea to Archaeology
00:02:09
Speaker
at the beginning, Alexandra is a professional embroiderer and also specializes in textile archaeology. But did you also do archaeological training of some kind or have you sort of gone into it from the embroidery route?
00:02:22
Speaker
So, oh, it's a bit of a long winded story. I shall cut it down. That's fine. We've got plenty of time on this podcast. OK. And I don't want to put people to sleep. They'll need a really strong team for that and that exam maybe after that. So in the UK, a lot of people, after doing their GCSEs, will go on and do A levels. And that's what I did. And then after that, I went down to the Royal School of Needlework and did what was then called their three-year apprenticeship. That no longer exists anymore. It's a different scheme.
00:02:52
Speaker
And I left that and I was thinking I never want to embroider again. I never want to look at an embroidery again. That went well. My other love was archaeology and so I decided at that point to do an undergraduate degree in archaeology. So I moved from London all the way up to the amazing New Castle upon Tyne and did my archaeology degree up there.
00:03:14
Speaker
Oh, okay. I'm fascinated that they still had indeed needlework apprenticeships. And you said
Traditional and Modern Training in Needlework
00:03:21
Speaker
that that one's still not running, but did those sort of things still exist nowadays? Well, the Royal School of Needlework's apprenticeship was unique, really. And that was one of the things that drew me to it. It was very different to the type of training that was going on in university systems, where you do your foundation course, and then you do perhaps go into fashion or something along those lines, where you could specialise in embroidery.
00:03:43
Speaker
This was much more traditional and learning those traditional techniques with a background of the history to them as well. So and that's what I enjoyed about and why I wanted to go in down there and do that course because of course it's combining that history side of it.
00:04:01
Speaker
So I mean that ran for decades and decades but then it's morphed now and it's now called the future, I think it's called the future teachers course. It's still three years, I'm not sure how different it is to the apprenticeship but it's still running in that form now.
00:04:20
Speaker
they took on very few apprentices each year. So you had not one-to-one tutoring, but you had a good ratio and it was a very in-depth tutoring to bring you to a standard where you could, for example, recently some of the old apprentices had been called back to create the coronation ropes and things like that. So that was the point of it.
00:04:46
Speaker
OK, so sort of really a sort of traditional making specialist expert professional project as well. OK, interesting.
00:04:54
Speaker
And
Rekindling Passion at Durham Cathedral
00:04:55
Speaker
when you started your archaeology degree, I mean, you said you never wanted to embroider again. So at what point did you decide, OK, fine, I'll go back to embroidery. Well, that was my brother's fault, actually. So whilst I was in Newcastle, he was studying his degree in history at Durham, and I had a car. So we would meet up and we'd go out to visit places, because those of you who may not know, at that time, we're talking back in the 90s here, it was 20 minutes down the A1 between Newcastle and Durham.
00:05:24
Speaker
And one day we decided to visit Durham Cathedral and they had on display there the stole, the manifold and the ribbons, sometimes called a girdle still, that were discovered in the tomb st. Cuthbert. I was just blown away by them because on the apprenticeship we went back to Opus Anglicana and I'd never really thought about, well, what happened before then? You know, people didn't just wake up in the 12th century and go,
00:05:52
Speaker
That's embroidery. Yeah, that's embroidery. And look how amazing we are at doing this gold work with all these complicated patterns and things like, wow, we're great at design too. And then seeing these pieces from the Tomb of St. Cuthbert, so they were, we think they were created around 910 CE. And I was just like, oh my goodness, that's absolutely
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, I was just, it blew my mind. The skill, the level of skill, the technique, the detail, the design, the use of materials. It was, I thought, yeah, this came before it for Sanco Carnan.
Time Travel Dreams: Medieval Curiosity
00:06:27
Speaker
And at that time, there was such a big fuss about Sanco Carnan.
00:06:31
Speaker
I was like, this is really important and interesting and actually much more exciting because very few, if anybody, had really studied Kriopasankarkanam in detail. And I can remember pressing my nose against the glass and leaving these marks all over the display. I said, I'm sorry. As you know, as I was trying to get closer and closer to these pieces, to see them in this dim light. And that was it then. I was off. I was back to the embroidery, but particularly from that period.
00:07:00
Speaker
But it's great that you did manage to combine both things and then it wasn't that, you know, the three, I mean, I wouldn't say the three years had been wasted anyway, but you know, it's nice that you could use something that you had so much training in already. And as of course, today we are traveling back in time, I have to ask all of my guests, if you could travel back in time to a point, where would you go and why?
00:07:23
Speaker
Well, when you first emailed me about the podcasting, you said you might ask me this question. I've been breaking my brains because obviously, people would expect me to say the early medieval period. But I don't think I would. Look, I think I'm quite happy here. And
00:07:41
Speaker
I suppose it's a two-pronged answer. So first of all, if I was going back in time and people could see me, and I might be able to, I don't know, fall over and break an arm or a leg, there would be no NHS or no Dentico or anything like that. You're thinking too practically. No, I think this is me there. So therefore I wouldn't want to go back in time. But if I was just going back in time and being like a fly on the wall and investigating, then obviously it would be the early medieval period. And obviously I would be looking at embroidery.
00:08:09
Speaker
and but not just looking at how the embroideries were created but I would want to investigate everything, how and where the materials were coming from, why people were commissioning what they were, the meanings and behind
00:08:23
Speaker
their uses and all of it anyways. So yeah, so not thinking too practically. It's an obvious answer that's been given really. fair enough, fair enough. Well, you'll be happy today because before we chat a bit more about today's object, we're going to journey back in time. And this month we're taking a much shorter trip than usual, because we're only going back to 1077 AD, which this is a date that I might have to discuss with you in a moment because
00:08:47
Speaker
It might even be too early or too late but we shall get there! To a thick walled castle nestled amongst the rolling hills of Kent, England. Inside one of the outer rooms there are several expanses of woven cloth piled onto the floor. One panel of this cloth is fixed into three very wide frames running alongside the few windows of the room. At these frames sit several women, their heads bent over their work, needles flashing in the sunlight as they pull brightly coloured thread through the tightly stretched cloth.
00:09:14
Speaker
An occasional chuckle punctuates the soft murmur of conversation, then at one point one of the women nudges her neighbour and points at the scene in front of her, gesturing at a part that she's just finished. The two of them break into peals of laughter, and the others all peer over to see what the source of the joke, giggling and snorting as they look at the freshly embroidered scene.
00:09:32
Speaker
Now, I was inspired by this time travel thing by a previous podcast that I actually did with Alex, which was done through the EXARC show and where we mentioned very briefly the Bayo tapestry and you mentioned that there were some kind of funny scenes that had been included potentially by the seamstresses. I think it was that anyway. If not, it's fine. It's a little fictional journey. So today we
Exploring the Bayeux Tapestry
00:09:53
Speaker
are looking at the Bayo, I think I'm saying it correctly, the Bayo tapestry.
00:10:00
Speaker
And so we'll get into the details soon, but first, as always, let's have a very quick look at some of the most asked questions on the internet, courtesy of Google search auto-fill, which I was expecting to not have that many, but actually there were loads. So we might not get through them all and we'll have to pop some into the next section and make it part of the discussion. The first one, quite simple is, what is the Beotapestry, what does the Beotapestry depict?
00:10:24
Speaker
So I suppose in simple terms, it depicts the downfall of the English as they have come to see themselves at the hands of the Normans. But it's more complicated than that. It shows really, think of it as a cartoon. So you're seeing the main snippets of the story in pictorial form. And it shows the end of Edward the Confessor, this great English Anglo-Saxon English king, as he comes to the end of his reign.
00:10:53
Speaker
and it's about the transition of power. So he had no children and so therefore his descendants were fighting, I suppose, politically fighting over who would be more likely to take over as king. And there was this powerful family of whom Harold was a son and they were
00:11:14
Speaker
at the foremost for becoming the next, he was at the foremost for becoming the next rule in monarch. And in the Bea Tapestry and documentary evidence suggests this as well, that Edward the Confessor did say to him, you, I want you to reign after me. However, at that time, England was apparently one of the most organized, one of the most prosperous kingdoms or countries within what we would now call Europe.
00:12:00
Speaker
And one of those was William, William the Conqueror, as he became known to us over here. But he was king, I suppose, he was, well, not king, he was Duke of Normandy. And he had a family link through the maternal side. So he could tenuously claim that he had a right to the English throne as well. And obviously, because of all the
00:12:06
Speaker
and obviously it had the NVSIs of people looking over from the channel.
00:12:25
Speaker
How unorganised we were, how rich and prosperous the country was, he wanted the country. So there's all of this political shenanigans and background and manoeuvres going on in the background.
00:12:41
Speaker
And on the bear tapestry itself, it then shows Harold going across to Normandy. He gets captured and he ends up going to, I'm cutting this down quite a lot, he ends up going to William's court and he goes on campaigns with them. And in the end, according to the tapestry, and some documentary evidence, he
00:13:08
Speaker
swears an allegiance to William and therefore William can use that to help him claim the English throne. So Harold's actually saying no, you should be king of England and he swears that on relics.
00:13:26
Speaker
which is kind of like us going to court today and putting our hand on the Bible as well in our oath. It's the same sort of thing. Obviously, Harold eventually gets back to England and Edward dies and Harold becomes king.
00:13:45
Speaker
saying, no, I didn't really say nobody. What are you talking about? Yeah, exactly. So William obviously is incensed by this. He gets the Pope on side. And in the meantime, there are people, there are kings from Scandinavia who are like, no, we should be king of England. And so you get them attacking in the north. So Harold and his armies have to go north to fight them.
00:14:13
Speaker
In the meantime, William is getting his armies ready and they sail down to the south of England and so Harold and his army have to march after this battle march all the way down to the south of England. So they're exhausted. I just can't imagine how they would feel after all of that.
00:14:34
Speaker
engage in battle of the famous battle of Hastings and they obviously they lose and then the end of the hanging is missing but people assume that it would have finished with William being crowned King of England. I've missed out lots of little nuances and little stories about the pillaging and burning of crops and houses and things so it's telling this story, this very complicated story from a particular point of view.
00:15:04
Speaker
Okay, that's really fascinating. I mean, how long is it then? Because that's a long story to tell. It's a long story, yes. So the surviving tapestry comes in at just over 63 metres. Obviously, like I said, there's that piece missing at the end, and we don't really know how long that would have been. Yeah, okay. And who made it or who commissioned it, I suppose?
00:15:26
Speaker
We don't have firm evidence for who commissioned it. The overriding consensus is that it was probably someone like Bishop Odo who was half brother to Duke William and a very powerful individual. But different scholars have come up with other people and
00:15:49
Speaker
But the evidence for those other people is even less, is for Odo. And I suppose one of the supporting arguments for Odo is the fact that he appears quite prominently in the Bea Tapestry. And going, Oh, what a wonderful person. Yes, exactly. Look how great I am. If it was him, you can imagine him turning up at the workshop, going, No, no, make me look grand up. Surely I would say this. I'm not two foot tall. I'm six foot tall.
00:16:19
Speaker
And his name always appears, or nearly always appears, above his figure. So he's quite prominent. So that has one of the reasons why it's led people to suggest that he was the commissioner. I see, I see. And that, I guess, relates to another question which came up on the Google search, which I was quite surprised that it came up. I put in why Beotapestry. And the first question that came up was, why is the Beotapestry not reliable?
00:16:43
Speaker
Oh yeah, I suppose people look at the bear tapestry and sometimes think that it's a historical document and take it as literal facts, which you shouldn't really do with any historical document really, you should always question it. But it tells the story from a certain perspective and it's
00:17:03
Speaker
So you have to take into account all the nuances and the propaganda that's involved in that. So there's that side of it. I think that question could also be referring to the fact that in the past, researchers have wondered and investigated whether
00:17:19
Speaker
depictions of the armour and different elements that you see in it are historically accurate. So if someone was on an excavation, whether they would find a helmet that looked exactly the same and things like this. So there's that link to archaeological objects as to whether they're accurately depicted within the tapestry. Oh, okay. So that was sort of in the early days. Has there been any further research into that?
00:17:46
Speaker
I think most people now will agree that the designer probably saw these objects and then was able to render them. But whether they are 100% accurate is another question. And it's a difficult one to answer, really.
00:18:07
Speaker
I mean, is it like those things? You always see those pictures from medieval times of, you know, someone and it's the classic meme is like, oh, draw a hippopotamus. You do know what a hippopotamus looks like, right? You know, medieval. Of course I do. And it's some, you know, bizarre rabbit with a horn on its head or something.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah, I wouldn't say it was as way out as that. It was more accurate than that. And people are still doing me, do still look at it from that point of view as well. And so sometimes you get articles or chapters and books coming out, because there's so much published on the Bayard Tapestry. So they do include chapters and books on it as well, discussing that in more detail. So I think elements of them are
00:18:50
Speaker
You might find certain elements of things that are very similar to how it's depicted in the better tapestry, but whether a whole object would be the same is another question. Okay. Okay. Okay. Cool. Very interesting. Well,
Reliability of the Bayeux Tapestry
00:19:04
Speaker
that's already a very detailed answer to the Google's most searched questions. This is what happens when you go more historic rather than prehistoric. There's actually written evidence that we can use to answer these questions. Yes. Let's have a very quick break and we'll be back soon to discuss more.
00:19:21
Speaker
Welcome back to part two of this chat with Alex Macon. He's talking about the Beo tapestry. I'm so sorry. I think because I always see it written down and then I never really have to say it out loud that much. And just yeah, anyway, everyone's the same. Don't worry.
00:19:39
Speaker
But it's a fantastic name for someone looking at making things. It's perfect. So we know a little bit more about the kind of the context, I suppose, or the background of the Bayeux tapestry, what it depicts, why it was made potentially. But perhaps we can, we can go to a bit more of a detailed discussion. So we already talked about kind of, there's a little bit of a debate about who commissioned it. It was probably Bishop Odo. Are there any other suggestions of
00:20:04
Speaker
other people that it might have been or what's the kind of main points of that debate around who commissioned it.
00:20:10
Speaker
So it has been suggested that in the past, really, that the Queen Matilda may have commissioned it. But the evidence for that, as far as I'm aware, is very slight. I think there have been a couple of other suggestions as well, which I can't remember off the top of my head. But yeah, Bishop Odo is there in the forefront. Okay. Yeah. So it's the most sort of likely, probably, suggestion. Okay. Yeah. And but then, so he commissioned it, but who was it who actually sowed it? Who were the actual embroiderers?
00:20:40
Speaker
So again, there's been a lot of debate around this, obviously people having different arguments for their own research and scholarly reasons and putting their own points of view across. But the consensus now is that it was embroidered in early medieval England. And the reason, there were a number of reasons for that. First of all, embroiderers from England were renowned for their scale and their embroidery work. And there's lots of documentary that we did, well, I say lots.
00:21:08
Speaker
There's lots when you consider how much documentary evidence survives from the period. So there's lots of evidence demonstrating their skill as well as the surviving objects themselves and the fact that people wanted their pieces.
00:21:25
Speaker
So it wasn't just the English saying, oh, look how good we are. No, so you have sort of kings going to see popes taking pieces with them to give to popes, but you also have requests from people within ecclesiastical circles and in the elite circles. But then when the Normans arrive, they actually, when they're pillaging places, they're actually taking these embroideries
00:21:55
Speaker
and sending them back to places in Normandy. Or people like Queen Matilda, for instance, are commissioning new pieces to be embroidered, which they're sending back to religious institutions that they've established themselves. For her point of view, there was a conference in Cannes.
00:22:14
Speaker
that she was sending pieces back to. So there is this reputation, and William Wamsbury, who was a chronicler, he actually writes about this. It was well known that it was a feminine art, and to be good at spinning and weaving and embroidery, it showed that you were this amazing female as well within society. So it had all these other connotations as well.
00:22:42
Speaker
opposed to that is the fact that women in Normandy are not known for their skin and embroidery. I did some research on this for a chapter I wrote for a book and there's practically no evidence discussing them as embroiderers until you get to slightly later and we get the romance stories coming through and then you get this idea that
00:23:09
Speaker
The elites were embroidering but not necessarily for commission and it was more of a
00:23:18
Speaker
I don't want to say hobby, but it was more of a leisurely affair for them. But you also get these other connotations as well, beginning to come through that, again, that it's a feminine art and this kind of thing, but it's more of a high ranking. It's suggested that it's more of a high ranking skill within a normal society.
00:23:41
Speaker
So there's that kind of evidence, really. But did then, would the women who would have sown, if we assume that they're women then, would they have likely then been, for example, upper class women or kind of the ladies, shall we say, or would people, would sort of serve in classes or working classes also have been able to do this kind of embroidery?
00:24:04
Speaker
So yeah, so it was women in that period, all the evidence points to it within England being women. And although there's evidence in other countries that men did embroider at this period, which is interesting, but you get this different women across society were embroidering. So whether they were all using gold and silk, that's a different question. But you
00:24:28
Speaker
you get the evidence that right from the very early period that women were creating and decorating pieces for their immediate family and their local village and then as the period progresses you get the development of what we call central estates
00:24:47
Speaker
where the ecclesiastical and secular elites were gathering materials and therefore people together. So you can see that there's a development in production of tax dollars and therefore their decoration along two different
00:25:02
Speaker
And then as the period progresses even more, you get more evidence for those two traditional forms, but also for independent concerns being set up. So we have this lovely doomsday, in doomsday book, we have evidence for two women who were embroidering and they don't come across as being elite.
00:25:23
Speaker
and we have in Winchester Aldrich's wife, that's all we know of her, she was doing embroidery for Queen Matilda. But then you have other documentary sources like the Librelliensis, the Book of Ely, so this is the book that the monks of Ely were writing about what was happening within their community and around it. And you have a couple of embroiderers named in that. And again, they weren't elites. So I think the whole thing everyone could embroider
00:25:53
Speaker
The materials they were using and the standard that they were working to would depend, I think, on their social status, their training, what was needed, and what their patron, what they were being commissioned to make, so what their patron could afford to pay for as well.
00:26:10
Speaker
Okay. And so for example, with the Beotepestry, what was, I assume then that was made of very high quality everything, like all the best materials, all of the, what was the, what actually was the main material? Is it linen or cotton or of the panel? I mean, sorry.
00:26:27
Speaker
Yeah, the ground fabric is linen and then the majority, 99.9% of the embroidery is wool, but there are a couple of areas where you can see there's a linen thread that's being used, but the majority of the embroidery stitching is wool.
00:26:44
Speaker
So this is interesting because wool was ubiquitous. It was used across the whole of society. So you can't say that it's a very elite thing. Linen was, I suppose, more
00:26:59
Speaker
I don't know if you're in the UK, more of your John Lewis type of fabric, that kind of thing. Just slightly upper middle class kind of thing. I was hesitating to say it because I hate using the class terms, but yes. You like to go to a Marxist Spencer's more than Waitrose. Waitrose more than something.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, and yeah, so that was, whereas your silks and your gold, they're, they're highest on their designer. So yeah, so that's, I suppose, the way it worked out. So, but the
00:27:36
Speaker
The materials that were used for the hanging are perfect for what the hanging is trying to do. It's going to be exhibited in a big public space but lots of people to view it and it's like seeing an altar cloth in a cathedral, these big designs.
00:27:55
Speaker
wet which you can see from a distance and even if you can't see the detail you can read the story that it's trying to tell from a distance and then when you get up close you can see all these different details and things. So although the materials are not silk and gold work etc etc it's actually perfect for what it's trying to achieve. And when was it hung actually?
00:28:19
Speaker
Oh, the big question. One of the big questions. We're asking all the awkward questions today. I know. I'm thinking I should take a look at the search. Stick to one of the points. No nuance here.
00:28:32
Speaker
No, I like to sit on the fence and let it just do what I mean. But what are the suggested places then? So the most popular suggestion is it was made for Bea Cathedral. I don't. Personally, I'm not sure that it was originally made for the cathedral. I like Gail Owen Crocker's and Chris, I can't remember his last name, I'm so sorry.
00:28:55
Speaker
Their idea that it was actually made for a room in a castle originally and I can see how that would work with the layout of the story and the positioning of it and how it would have been positioned around the size of a room, I mean it's just a Dover castle.
00:29:15
Speaker
but how it would fit within the particular parameters of that room. And I think that would work very well. The beginnings of the tapestry, the tapestry's life, are shrouded in kind of mystery, really. And you don't hear about it at the cathedral until I think it's 14 something or other. Oh, wow. OK. When it appears in documents where they say they get it out once a year and it's displayed around the nave.
00:29:44
Speaker
So, I know some people will disagree with me on that, some people will disagree with me quite firmly on that, but that's my personal opinion of the evidence that I've seen, yeah. Okay, and you mentioned in the cathedral, it sort of mentioned in 1400, so I could use the date 1077 in our little time travel thing, mainly because I wasn't sure indeed how soon after the battle it would have been done. Is that then too early, do you think? Do they know when it was made?
00:30:10
Speaker
It's assumed that it's made around that time. Yes. No, so you're okay. It's all right. I'm very shallow researching into it. Didn't let me down.
00:30:21
Speaker
You don't have to do a load of re-editing, it's fine. It was done fairly soon after the battle and everything took place. Interesting. You mentioned that we sort of know that we could assume that it was made in England because of the kind of high level of
00:30:42
Speaker
seems embroidery skill that sort of is demonstrated through it and things and that kind of correlates with what we know of the skills in England. Are there different styles or techniques, you mentioned techniques of embroidery that you can see between, for example, Normandy versus England or other areas at that time?
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, before I answer that, I just I should have said also that there are other reasons for us thinking that it was made in England was because the design itself is very similar to surviving manuscripts from St Augustine's community in Canterbury and places like that. So there's there's also that side of it as well. It's not just about the embroidery technique. So as far as I'm aware, there's actually very little if any embroidery surviving from the Norman period in Normandy.
00:31:29
Speaker
I did read once about some found in a burial, but it was a very preliminary, sketchy outline. I've not actually been able to track that down. I think the suggestion in the report was that it actually wasn't made locally. Well, it sounds like they were all rubbish and embroidery there anyway. I'm not going to say that. I'm going to sit on the fence.
00:31:50
Speaker
So I don't know if there were any differences. I mean, in the romances and the things they talk about working with and things like silk and stuff like that, which you would expect, I suppose, people of high rank to be doing. But the use of wool on linen, you can see correlations with that sort of thing within Scandinavian countries.
00:32:11
Speaker
But also, you can argue that that sort of thing was used for hangings within early medieval England, and possibly other places like Normandy as well, because it's just, as I said earlier, the materials are just perfect for that sort of thing, and for depicting these large cartoon-like stories as well. I think that the reason the Bayeux Tapestry has become so synonymous and famous is because it survived. I was actually going to ask, why is the Bayeux Tapestry such a big deal?
00:32:41
Speaker
Well, it's partly because it survived, partly because it was sort of rediscovered in the antiquarian period in the 19th century, so Victorian period in the UK. And there was during that period that a lot of countries, not just the UK, were trying to establish themselves as leaders of empire and this sort of thing.
00:33:04
Speaker
And they, as a result of that, and it happens, it happens throughout history, they were trying to show that they had this great lineage, and they should be leaders of empire. And it goes right back into the mists of time. For the English in particular, the Bay of Tapestry had these sort of resonances as well. I mean, it did for people in Normandy too. But that's why it has such
00:33:29
Speaker
large cultural connotations, particularly in England, even up to today. I see, because it tells the story that people wanted to hear. I'm not necessarily wanted to hear, but it shows that there is this... Well, no, from the antiquarian period, probably, because all the elite family, aristocrats from that period would always turn around and say, we go back to William... We came over with William and Congress, so, yeah, you're right, actually. Don't you see this? Yeah, yeah.
00:33:58
Speaker
See, I don't look at it like that because I always think my family probably went, hopefully went back beyond that. And therefore, we're the ones that were subjugated by the Normans. But yeah, a lot of the aristocrats were, they like to say, they used to like to say that they came over with William the Conqueror and his entourage and stuff. So yes, so it would link him with that. Yes.
00:34:22
Speaker
And so you mentioned that it survived, and that's what's quite special about it. Are there any other kind of big tapestries? How does it compare to sort of its contemporaries in that respect? So from the UK, we have documentary evidence only, unfortunately, of another big hanging called, I hope I pronounced this right, the Britnock Hanging. And this, the evidence for this is found in that book, the Librelliensis that I mentioned before, the Book of Ely, where Earl de Munn and Earl
00:34:52
Speaker
Britain, he went to fight the Vikings in around 991, I think it was, if I remember correctly, and his wife donated to the monks at Ealy a hanging that was depicted, the great deeds of her husband. So we have this documentary evidence for that, for the specific hanging. We also have hints
00:35:17
Speaker
through other documentary evidence that hangings depicting great deeds, whether religious or secular, were used within both religious and secular settings. So that's within England. But in Scandinavia, we have the woven textiles from the Oseberg ship burial, which again show a cartoon, like they show a storyline, possibly mythological.
00:35:41
Speaker
and we have later a sort of small fragment of rune hanging which was found in a church and it's a linen ground fabric with wool embroidery and you can see it's not exactly the same I mean it's a small fragment but it's not exactly the same as the bare tapestry but you can see there are similarities there to that and there are other examples I could cite but there it's in this melee of
00:36:08
Speaker
wall hangings that show great deeds and are telling stories to a population that couldn't necessarily read, as well as acting as draft excluders and decorating houses and things like that. Yeah,
The Bayeux Tapestry's Enduring Fame
00:36:23
Speaker
so it's part of this huge melee, but like I say, the rune fragment is small, the Beethoven's just gained fame because it has survived so well.
00:36:35
Speaker
Yeah, which, yeah, you wonder how many other amazing tapestries there were that maybe just didn't survive then. I wish they had, but you know. We'd see all these different stories, five different versions of the same battle. Historians would love that. Yeah, I can imagine. I think we're going to have a very quick break now so that our listeners can have an opportunity to top up their team and we will be back soon.
00:37:04
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone. I hope that the teacups are fuller and the biscuits are emptier. So thank you so much for telling us a bit more about the Beotepestry, which indeed sounds like it's sort of famous just because it happened to survive, which has sort of been inevitable for so many historic documents as well. You wonder how much is missing out there. And I am actually curious, we sort of had mentioned it a few times throughout, and I think it would be interesting to talk about this is the first of this podcast, which is dealt, I guess, with more historic artifact rather than prehistoric artifact.
Textile Archaeology: Historic vs Prehistoric
00:37:32
Speaker
And I'm curious, as a textile archaeologist as well, obviously, you have specialised in more historic periods. But what is your kind of experience of historic textile archaeology versus prehistoric? Does it hinder the research to have all of this extra information? Does it make it more difficult? Does it make it easier? What would you say? Well, I was slightly biased. Well, no, I'm very biased because I love my period. And I would only step out of it really if push came to shove.
00:38:02
Speaker
But for me, I'm quite interdisciplinary in my approach to my work. So I love the fact that you have all this art, historical, documentary evidence and all these other sources that I can go to.
00:38:19
Speaker
to try and create a really full and rounded picture. And for me as well, it's not just about technical attributes and telling an object biography story, but it's about being able to use that then to explore and enhance the story of
00:38:36
Speaker
the societies in which they were used. And I know people from other periods do that as well. But for me, the fact that you have all this other evidence helps in that. And I mean, I know people who study prehistoric textiles and the information that they're able to gather from those textiles and the sites where they're found. I hesitate to say exclavations because sometimes it's not. I think it's amazing. But I just think
00:39:04
Speaker
unique as well because they haven't got any of your sources in which to either back up what they're saying or to help expand the stories that they're telling. Yeah. See, I would argue the other way as a historian.
00:39:20
Speaker
Like, to me, it's really scary to have all of these extra levels of interpretation that you have to go through. Because I mean, as you mentioned before, as well, obviously, the Bayeux Tapestry, you said, oh, people see it as a historic document that tells one truth or, you know, a thing, but obviously it doesn't. And I mean, I guess that's the case with all other forms of historic documentation. And I know now I'm just talking about, obviously, all historians have training in this and are able to
00:39:43
Speaker
work through the bias. But to me, that's the main, that's almost scarier to have to kind of, you're not just working through your own bias when you're interpreting the past, you're also having to think, ah, but why did they write this? Or why did they do this? But I suppose that's something that's second nature to you now.
00:39:59
Speaker
Well, something that I find really interesting and exciting as well is the fact that, well, why are you writing this? What exactly are you trying to say? And then I can say, oh, you were wrong. Or yes, you were wrong. I don't know, it's all part of that whole, I suppose it's like a very complex detective story, really. And I just, yeah, that's one of the things that I really like about it. I mean, I do have to sometimes put the brakes on and say, no, I don't think maybe we're selling metallics. I think that's your, that's you reading too much into it.
00:40:28
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes if you get, if I get excited about something, I have to kind of rain myself in. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? How people who specialize in different periods can look at the other period as well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Luckily, there are enough of both sorts. Yes, that's true.
00:40:49
Speaker
Because obviously then you do indeed specialise in more historic periods, early medieval, but do you know when, for example, the first embroidery might have been? What is the kind of earliest physical evidence that we have for something that could be interpreted, I guess, as embroidery? I don't know exactly, but embroidery does go way back into the myths of prehistory. So it has a very long tradition. And from the early medieval period itself, I mean, I suppose the earliest
00:41:18
Speaker
The piece could be a decorative functional piece so it was actually holding a tablet woven band to a textile and that was found on a childhood from Orkney. I just love the fact that the possible earliest piece from my period could be this childhood.
00:41:37
Speaker
So, and that, that stitches, it's a form of what we call loop stitch, but it uses three different threads being worked at the same time. So it's a very complex stitch. So it shows that by the early medieval period, embroidery had, it might not be pictorial, but it had developed in a form
00:41:58
Speaker
that was very complex and that people understood in detail how to use fibres and materials and to create these beautiful objects as well. I love that, it's such a long tradition.
00:42:13
Speaker
And I guess what's interesting, I mean, I never really thought about it before, but of course, sewing has been going on for, you know, how many thousands of years, we assume, based on the evidence of needles, but that's more of a, you know, for want of a better word, practical, I guess, you know, way to create bits of clothing. So it sort of fulfills a practical need for survival. But something like embroidery is more is I actually don't know the official definition of embroidery, but is it always something that's more decorative or more
00:42:42
Speaker
kind of, do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I know what you mean. As you were saying that, I was thinking, oh gosh, it's different. There are different understandings of embroidery, particularly depending on the period that you studied. So for me, in the early medieval period, embroidery
00:43:00
Speaker
It starts off as what I would call, as I said earlier, decoratively functional. So it's doing a functional holding, protecting seams, joining them together or hems, etc, etc. But it's decorating them at the same time. So it's not just doing a simple stitch, it's doing like a nice
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's adding that extra layer on that you didn't need to add, but it's human nature to be surrounded by beauty, whether natural or created, and forms of art, artistry. And this shows it in, I was going to say very simple, but it's not very simple terms, but
00:43:35
Speaker
it shows it even in small areas that people wanted to do this. So you have that and then you move up to towards the end of the period where people are telling stories through it and it can be more pictorial, it can be simple or elaborate but it's decorating objects or
00:43:56
Speaker
it, like the bare tapestry, it's purely, there's no functionality in it. I mean, yes, it could be used to decorate and exclude drafts. Yeah, it's made its main reason is decorative and to tell certain stories and things like that.
00:44:18
Speaker
It's almost like a, you know, you can see it progress, I guess, from sort of cave paintings to then, which may, you know, maybe initially there was some theory I read somewhere that the very, very earliest cave paintings might have been way markers. So it was more of a, yes, it was decoration, but it also served a practical function.
00:44:36
Speaker
potentially just developed into something that was purely aesthetic and I guess it's sort of similar in terms of that. Yes, you just answered the question so much better than I have. I just summarized what you said in a beautiful way. I did the boring answer.
00:44:52
Speaker
But yeah, it's really fascinating. It'll be so interesting indeed to see how far back it goes then. I mean, there's so decoration and beads and all of that kind of stuff, I suppose. Beads being sewn onto clothing is already quite far back. I suppose that could be the sort of precursor maybe to embroidery. Possibly, yes. Something like that.
00:45:10
Speaker
And in terms of the material culture that you have from embroidery, obviously you have the tapestries themselves, but as you said, they don't always survive. But do you have, for example, specialized embroidery needles or other kind of materials that you could look at and say, ah, well, they were doing embroidery at this site or whatever, even if we don't have the actual embroidery left?
00:45:33
Speaker
So I wouldn't say specialist needles as perhaps we would know them today, but you do find beautiful needles, particularly in Viking contexts actually, where they are held in needle cases. And they're often found in female, sometimes child burials attached to the girdle or the belt of the deceased. And they
00:45:59
Speaker
I mean the ones I like the most are they're in these needle cases but they've been placed into bits of fabric as well and then the fabric with the needles have been placed into these needle cases and I just love that because it's so tangible isn't it? So some of these needles are very fine and could
00:46:17
Speaker
I would argue it would be the very fine functional work or embroidery work and then at the other end of the scale you get these objects that are possibly needles. I would argue that they probably are needles but they're really big. I say big.
00:46:33
Speaker
They're not like houses, but they live in these repairs. And they were perhaps used for things like fishing nets or framing up on voyages and this kind of more coursework. So you do get a gradation in needles, but whether you can say they're specialised for silk work and gold work,
00:46:58
Speaker
Compared to being used for lots of different things, it's more difficult to say. And I suppose things like the frames and stuff are also usually organic or wood, so they might not also...
00:47:09
Speaker
necessarily survive as well? There were no embroidery frames from the period. I've argued that there's an image of a man who most people say he's weaving, but I've argued he's actually embroidery, and this is from a Byzantine context. And if you look at him and compare it to images of people embroidering, the way he sat is very similar to that, but also the context it's from the Byzantine
Byzantine Embroidery vs Weaving
00:47:40
Speaker
I think. No, that might be the wrong thing. But it's from Exodus. And it's around the creation, it's setting around the creation of the temple. And so it's talking about not only weaving things to hanging, cloths, to hanging the temple, but it's also talking about embroidering and decorating textiles as well.
00:48:03
Speaker
So that dates towards the end of our period. So I've argued that that's the earliest image really that we have, but there's no hard evidence. Well, interesting. And you sort of, we've mentioned a couple of times so that it was sort of assumed that the women were the ones doing the embroidery. Although you mentioned in some European countries, it may have been men, and you just mentioned a man doing embroidery then. In terms of kind of professional embroidery now, I mean, I'm just thinking of something like
00:48:31
Speaker
cooking, which, you know, everyone, this sort of classic stereotype, everyone's like, oh, women's places in the kitchen, you know, it's sort of assumed that, you know, if you're a cook, you're, you're a woman, but the chefs, you know, the best chefs were only allowed to be men or, you know, all this kind of thing. Is it similar with embroidery? Is that something that it's sort of, oh, yes, it's women's work. But if you want to be really professional, you're more like, you know, the men are the most likely to get it, or is that completely different?
00:48:57
Speaker
it's different. The problem we have with embroidery is the fact that at the Renaissance, there was this divide between what we would now class as a higher art and crafts. And a lot of things to do with embroidery also have been linked to feminism and development of that as well. But pre the Renaissance, the evidence shows that embroidery was cast as
00:49:27
Speaker
a high art form. And the evidence for the early medieval period in what's now the British Isles is that embroidery was a female role. But in Byzantium and the Islamic world, we have evidence that actually men were professional embroiderers during the same period. So I find that quite interesting.
00:49:47
Speaker
in the British Isles and within mainland Europe as well. You have with the development of the guilds and this system and the so-called professionalisation of these arts and crafts, men then begin to be seen in the records as well. And particularly during the later medieval period, you do get a lot more men involved in embroidery and they're also being paid more as well. Of course, of course. So, yeah, you know, it carries on all the way down the centuries.
00:50:17
Speaker
So, yeah, and then with the renaissance, with this divide, embroidery then becomes, you still get men and women, but embroidery is now becoming more, considered more of a craft form. And then you get this, yeah, this, this development into its women's work, it's a leisurely thing, you do it at home. And you still get the professionals, obviously, but yeah, that's, yeah.
00:50:40
Speaker
Have we used to not exist? I was genuinely really curious. I was also curious, and you also sort of mentioned that slightly at the beginning, that there is kind of still work for professional embroiderers nowadays, because especially because, as you say, it might be considered more craft than high art since that period. So I was curious whether it was something that is necessarily not easy to find work in, but you know, whether there is enough regular work to have that as your specialism. Yes, I mean, I've got
00:51:07
Speaker
I've got lots of friends who are professional embroiderers and they tend to do a lot of, I say that they tend to be multi-stranded. So they'll take on commissions, they perhaps produce kits and they teach workshops and things like that. So it's not just about sitting at your frame and embroidering. It's that multifaceted side. And particularly if you are working at the top end of the scale, perhaps you would be working for couture.
00:51:36
Speaker
designers and things as well. So there's lots of different levels. And you can get people who just write books, produce designs for books and things like that as well. So there's lots of different levels for people working in professional embroidery.
00:51:53
Speaker
And you mentioned sort of commissions and kits and things. So I think I saw on your socials that you're currently working on sort of a replica of part of the Bay of Tapestry as a kind of project that you're doing.
Recreating the Bayeux Tapestry
00:52:07
Speaker
How did that start? What made you want to do that?
00:52:10
Speaker
It's funny, it started with a discussion with my husband and I was just saying... The men in your life are just taking you back to the Bay of Tapestry. Yeah, exactly. So I've been really lucky in that I've had access to high digital images of the back of the tapestry and I've been given access to take microscopic images of the tapestry itself. And so I've been able to do research on the technical aspects of it, which is something that's not being explored
00:52:39
Speaker
really at all before. And I've been able to produce research papers on that side of things. But there's a part of me as an embroider who's always thinking, well, this is the evidence that you see in the final result. But how did that final result occur? I'm really interested in what the thought processes were of the people who were
00:53:04
Speaker
stitching and why they made decisions that they did and also whether they are stitching
00:53:14
Speaker
sort of what they thought about, but what was innate on what just happened because of experience and things like that. And so the only way really of getting to grips with that is by actually producing a replica, a recreation of it, but using authentic materials, because I think we all know that if you use modern materials, the experience isn't the same as using authentic ones.
00:53:44
Speaker
So that was one of the reasons and the other reason was also to look at the interplay between how different sections were worked and why they were worked and the ways they were and to kind of back up what I've observed through my research with this practical project as well. Yeah, no, I'm really excited to see. I think you're you're documenting it through. Yeah, so it's on my YouTube channel, which is quite scary because it's
00:54:12
Speaker
it's also people understand what I'm doing and say people can say I want to do it like that but I mean that's happened with the latest video that I've put up and I'm like oh yeah and do you know what you're totally right why would you do it like that and it's so it's quite scary but everyone's been lovely about it so it's fine but yeah. Well and like you say it's showing an option right it's showing the exactly yes.
00:54:37
Speaker
happening. Well, I'll make sure to put a link to that. Are there any other exciting projects that are coming up or any other things that you'd like to share with those listening in who might be interested in starting a career in embroidery or getting started in that?
00:54:54
Speaker
are interested in getting started in Broadway, there are so many different options. It depends what kind of route you want to go down really. So you've got the traditional which is like the RSN or you can go down through university courses and things like that, which give you different options. I think the thing for doing something like I've done, you're combining both the history and the academic scholarship with the practical skills as well. So
00:55:20
Speaker
you would have to do a practical and then your academic studies and combine them both. So there are different options there depending on what people want to do. Exciting projects. So my work at Glasgow is ongoing, but that will be finishing soon and then I'm looking at developing more kits and workshops and things like that for after that.
00:55:44
Speaker
There's
Future Projects and Opportunities
00:55:45
Speaker
also some research ideas that are being curdling away in my head, but I don't want to talk about any of those just yet. So you'll just have to keep an eye out on social media. She said, put a plug. We'll make sure to share things. And the kits and things like that are all on your website, I believe as well. Yes, yes, they are. Yeah. And if
00:56:06
Speaker
If people want something that's not on there, then please email me, contact me. I might take a while to reply because I'm not always up to my eyeballs, but I will reply eventually. Great. Well, thank you so, so much for joining me today, Alex, which had about all these things that marks the end of our tea break. It sounds like you've got a lot to prepare, so I will let you get back to work. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. This was really great to chat to you about. Oh, no, thank you. I've really enjoyed it.
00:56:34
Speaker
And as we just mentioned, if anyone wants to find out more about Alex's work or the kits or the workshops that she'll be offering or anything about the Beotepistry as well, do check the show notes on the podcast homepage. I'll be putting all of the links in there. I hope that everyone enjoyed our journey today. If you want to help support this show and all of the other amazing series that form up the archaeology podcast network, you can become a member. You'll be helping us to create even more amazing content like this one.
00:57:00
Speaker
just blowing my own horn there. You will also have exclusive access to ad-free episodes and bonus content. For example, our quarterly online seminars, which look at different topics within archaeology. So for more information, go to the homepage archaeologypodcastnetwork.com and check that out. See you next month. I hope that you enjoyed our journey today. If you did, make sure to like, follow, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and I'll see you next month for another episode of Tea Break Time Travel.
00:57:29
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.