Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T00:07:48.680Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Birds of a Feather: Magpies in the Bayeux Tapestry?

from Part I - Textile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2016

Jill Frederick
Affiliation:
Professor, Minnesota State University Moorhead
Elaine Treharne
Affiliation:
Professor of English, Stanford University
Elizabeth Coatsworth
Affiliation:
Dr Elizabeth Coatsworth is Senior Lecturer at the Department of History of Art & Design, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Martin Foys
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of English, Hood College Visiting Professor of English, Drew University
Catherine E. Karkov
Affiliation:
Professor of Art History and Head of School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds
Christina Lee
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Viking Studies
Robin Netherton
Affiliation:
Costume historian and freelance editor; no academic affiliation
Louise Sylvester
Affiliation:
Louise M. Sylvester is Reader in English Language at the University of Westminster.
Donald G. Scragg
Affiliation:
Donald Scragg is Emeritus Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Manchester.
HTML view is not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Summary

The Bayeux Tapestry is alive with birds; in her 2005 article, “Squawk Talk: Commentary by Birds in the Bayeux Tapestry”, Gale R. Owen-Crocker counts 217 of them. The roles these birds play are richly varied: not only as hunting hawks and ornamental finials in the main register, but far more numerously in the borders, as actors in fables, and as what Owen-Crocker considers decorative pairs and singletons, which she sees also as sometimes commenting by pose and expression on the narrative action of the main register. Some of these birds are recognizable species: doves, peacocks, roosters, hawks or eagles, storks, cranes or herons; other less convincing identifications have included an ostrich, an owl, and paired phoenixes. Many of these species carry one or more widely applied symbolic associations in medieval art.

Among the birds in the border, there is a consistent tendency, regardless of physical type, to show the wings in a contrasting color and often to delineate the pinfeathers as alternating colors, creating a pattern of stripes. The colors used for the birds reflect the palette of the Tapestry as a whole, including dark green, red, gold, and black: naturalistic color is not intended. In part, the use of unnaturally bright colors for the birds and the contrasting color for the wings is probably intended to help make the bird and its pose visually legible. If the Tapestry was made for display in a large space such as a hall or church, as has been widely suggested, the color differences would certainly have enhanced visual legibility at a distance. However, the contrasting wing color of some of the birds in the Tapestry's borders may have an additional dimension of symbolic content. Of the birds of northwestern Europe, the most widespread example of a bird with a starkly contrasting wing is the magpie, with a highly striking white shoulder patch and stomach displayed against a black body. Given the non-naturalistic colors of the Tapestry's avian population, an accurate observation of color and its placement is not to be hoped for. But other elements of magpie appearance and behavior may be present here, thereby identifying these birds for their symbolic potential.

Type
Chapter
Information
Textiles, Text, Intertext
Essays in Honour of Gale R. Owen-Crocker
, pp. 85 - 102
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2016

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×