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Facts & figs
 Recording the events of September 1066
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Find out about the battle of Fulford

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The battle of Fulford website

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Panel 1 - Scarborough

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  Panel 2 - Rampage through Holderness

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  Panel 3 - Preparing for battle

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Panel 4 -Confrontation

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Panel 5 - Outflanking at the ford  

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Panel 6 - King Harald enters York

Visiting Fulford

Map York

 

Note that all the units used in the early literature about the Bayeux Tapestry were feet and inches. When analysing the dimensions of the images it turned out to be much more convenient to use imperial measures. The V&A museum gave me access to some full sized images to allow the sizes of the Bayeux Tapestry to be assessed. These are the measurements, and rationale, behind the size of the Fulford Tapestry.

Width

The preface will have a 21inch working area width. The original varies between 18-20 inches.

bulletThe narrative working area in the centre has a width of 13 inches
bulletBoth margins are 4 inches wide.
bulletRatio margin:panel:margin is close to 1:3:1

Length

The preface has 6 panels and these are approximately 30 inches long. Each panel is a notional 21 by 30 inches although the design normally blends one episode into the next. There is often a tree or something similar to help the eye separate the narrative. Allowing for some spare at either end for attaching to the frame-rollers, the length of the fabric will be 16 feet, with a 15-foot display area. (The actual length of the design is exactly 5.0 metres)

The panel has 4 horizontal lines
bulletOne at the top and one at the bottom of the embroidered area (i.e. 21 inches apart)
bulletOne either side of the central panel (i.e. 13 inches apart) and 4 inches

These lines are in a medium ochre. Both margins can be ‘invaded’ by the main narrative if the design requires it so the lines are not automatically in the front and might have some breaks.

Lettering

An old style font has been used as a guide in the design but the lettering would look fine if it was freehand. The language chosen is English (as there are not many Latin speakers around now).

Bars and tents

The top and bottom margins have ‘bars’. In the original, they vary in size, grouping, thickness and even angle. It was not possible to discern a pattern - perhaps the coordination between the various houses where the sections were being embroidered was imperfect for the marginal designs.

The Fulford embroiderers have been given considerable licence to adjust these and to add ornamentation to the bars. However, the design aims to have a ‘tent’ (opposing bars) in the centre of each panel to help focus attention. The spacing of the bars varies a little to suit the images they contain. But the angle of the bars has been kept consistent.

The bars are used to separate the sections of the border. There are no fixed rules but the design has used them in a reasonably consistent way. They attempt to bring a focus to the images below in the central panel. The use of the bars is however constrained by the shape of the images they surround. The design provides a simple bar to mark where they are to be placed. However, the embroiderers are free to design the bars or add a double bar if the space permits. The bars themselves can be embellished and designs can be incorporated between double bars and surrounding single bars.
There is scope to incorporate personal initials or icons into these embellishments. The only constraint is that these should be made with the outline stitch but very small areas of laid work are acceptable. The embellishments should also respect the space of the adjacent action.

The bars can be filled in a variety of ways to suit the mood or the preference of the embroiderer. They also ensure that there is a pleasing spacing along the borders and there are no large empty spaces.

Some samples of ornamenting from the Bayeux border. They are used to divide scenes in the borders and to separate or fill in the bars. These can be derived from geometric patterns or nature to suit the situation. They use the outline stitch.

Lines

The landscape is marked with some stylised lines to indicate ‘stony ground’, ‘marsh’, ‘sea’, ‘beach’ and ‘grass’. These must not dominate the panels and should not be intrusive. They can be laid over other images if that is appropriate, such as sea or if people are stuck in a marsh.

Putting the lines in early had many advantages: The lines provided a guide to the tracing of the drawings and far from becoming distorted as other images were added, the edging lines seem to allow the embroiders to judge the tension.

Tracing

We think that designs used to be transferred by pricking little holes along the design lines and then placing the pin-holed pattern onto the cloth and banging or dusting it with a bag of coloured chalk or carbon.

We used a special pen that fades, does not mark the cloth permanently and comes with a chemical so it can be erased.

Material

The material will be a fine, slightly bleached linen. Fresh linen is too dark (‘linen coloured!’). The gauge must not be so tight that it is difficult to embroider and it must be possible to trace the image onto the fabric. The intention is to provide a backing material of calico to make the tapestry more robust and easier to display when it is completed. A close examination of some sample images from the Bayeux Tapestry suggested that the fabric was 18/19 tpi warp/weft. The fabric used was sourced from a mill on the Baltic Coast, through a merchant in Hamburg. Sadly all of the British linens were either natural or chemically bleached. 

In the Bayer there are:
bullet626 humans figures
bulletOnly 4 women (Edward’s wife, Aelfgyva, a fleeing mother and one marginal, naked lady)
bullet190 horses
bullet35 dogs
bullet506 miscellaneous beasts
bullet37 ships
bullet33 buildings
bullet37 trees or clumps of trees

 


Read about the battle that inspired the tapestry

Panel 1 from the coloured design

The author of the content is Charles Jones - fulfordthing@gmail.com

Supported with lottery funding from:

 

launched May 2012

last updated Dec 2012

Panel 6 from the original sketch

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