Aelfgyva : The Mysterious Lady of the Bayeux Tapestry (*)
The Bayeux Tapestry, long recognized as a significant legacy of the Middle Ages, is a treasure not alone for its intrinsic artistic merit but also as a historical source of major importance. A near contemporary pictorial narrative of the background to and the course of the Norman Conquest from 1064 to the triumph of Duke William at Hastings, its many panels have been meticulously examined by generations of scholars, each of its hundreds of figures, decorative embellishments and fifty-seven terse Latin inscriptions closely scrutinized for whatever information they might yield regarding that momentous event (1). Yet, in spite of the intense study devoted to the Tapestry, uncertainties remain concerning both its place of origin and the tale woven into it (2). One of the most intriguing of these puzzles centers upon a scene in that initial segment of the Tapestry treating with Earl Harold Godwinson's famed and controversial visit to the court of the
(*) Nous comptons, et nous nous en félicitons, plusieurs collaborateurs anglo-saxons. Ce qui pose le problème, pas toujours facile à résoudre, de la traduction en français de leurs articles. Ce problème ne peut toujours être résolu à temps : c'est ce qui s'est passé pour le présent texte de M. Campbell dont de précédentes contributions aux Annales de Normandie sont connues de nos lecteurs. Aussi bien l'anglais est-il largement connu de la communauté scientifique.
(1) The body of literature treating with the Tapestry has over the years reached an impressive length, far too extensive to permit anything but a representative sampling here : J.C. Bruce, The Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated (London, 1856) : A. Jubinal, La Tapisserie de Bayeux représentant la 'conquête de l'Angleterre en 1066 (Paris, 1862) ; F.R. Fowke, The Bayeux Tapestry : A History and Description (London, 1898) ; E. Maclagan, The Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1943) ; Sir F.M. Stenton, The Bayeux Tapestry : A Comprehensive Survey (London, 1957) ; C.H. Gibbs-Smith, The Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1973) ; L. Thorpe, The Bayeux Tapestry and the Norman Invasion (London, 1973) ; M. Rud, La Tapisserie de Bayeux et la bataille du Pommier gris, trans, from the Danish by E. Eydoux (Copenhagen, 1974).
(2) A second problem, it might be noted, is found in that segment treating with the exchanges between Duke William and Count Guy of Ponthieu concerning the latter's capture of Earl Harold where « A minor, but insoluble, problem has always been those two sections of the Tapestry in which the scenes are shown in reverse order » : Gibbs-Smith, The Bayeux Tapestry, p. 9. A possible solution to this problem is suggested by R.D. Wissolik in his article « Duke William's Messengers : An ' Insoluble, Reverse-Order ' Scene of the Bayeux Tapestry » in Medium Aevum, L (1982) .
