Bayeux Tapestry - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The inventory listing of 1476 shows that the tapestry was being hung annually in Bayeux Cathedral for the week of the Feast of St. John the Baptist and this was still the case in 1728 although by that time the purpose was merely to air the hanging which was otherwise stored in a chest. Clearly, the work was being well cared for. In the eighteenth century the artistry was regarded as crude or even barbarous — red and yellow multi-coloured horses upset some critics. It was thought to be unfinished because the linen was not covered with embroidery. However, its exhibition in the Louvre in 1797 caused a sensation with Le Moniteur, which normally dealt with foreign affairs, reporting on it on its first two pages. It inspired a popular musical La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde. It was because the tapestry was regarded as an antiquity, rather than a work of art, that in 1804 it was returned to Bayeux where in 1823 one commentator, A. L. Léchaudé d'Anisy, reported "there is a sort of purity in its primitive forms, especially considering the state of the arts in the eleventh century".

The tapestry was becoming a tourist attraction with Robert Southey complaining of the need to queue to see the work In the 1843 Hand-book for Travellers in France by John Murray III a visit was included on Recommended Route 26 (Caen to Cherbourg via Bayeux) and this guidebook led John Ruskin to go there describing it as "the most interesting thing in its way conceivable". Charles Dickens was not impressed: "It is certainly the work of amateurs; very feeble amateurs at the beginning and very heedless some of them too".

During World War II Heinrich Himmler coveted the work regarding it as "Important for our glorious and cultured Germanic history".