The Bayeux Tapestry shows the Normans dining, shortly after landing at Pevensey in late September 1066 (Figure 1). It may be supposed, from the previous scene, that at least some of the food they are eating had been looted, even if the wine had been brought from Normandy. Some eat chickens while sitting at a trestle table assembled out of shields. The legend above them reads: ‘Here they make lunch’ – although prandium could also be translated as ‘breakfast’. To the right, others, perhaps the better men, dine at a table, drinking from vessels and picking up food with their hands, some of which is offered to them by a servant. Presiding over the table is a bishop, presumably Bishop Odo of Bayeux as a figure points to his name which is found above the next scene. It is not clear if the duke is also there. The legend above reads: ‘And here the bishop blesses the food and the drink.’ The placing and iconography of this scene have been the subject of some comment, and I will return to these issues later in this paper. But the image of itself reveals something about how food and drink were taken in the eleventh century. We can see examples of the food consumed. There are chickens on skewers, and a fish is on a plate in front of the bishop. Knives were used to cut the food up, and drink was drunk from shallow cups (the figure here is trying to blow the horn rather than drinking from it).