The Tapestry
Here are some detailed memories from my journal on the Bayeux Tapestry...ofcourse it wsn't called Bayeux Tapestry at that time, but today everyone knows it by this name...
Memories of working on the Tapestry…
(these are not in any order, except for the last memories)
* The barrel is always outside of the work room and there is “soap?” and a very hard brush for scrubbing our hands, especially under our fingernails. NO one is allowed to start work with dirty hands. Sometimes in the winter, I would break the ice on the surface and my hands remained cold all day…so cold that they hurt, and I can’t always feel the needle.
* William doesn’t really care about this work. It is being made for the Earl of Kent. He wants to be very important…I think he wants to be King. I fear these words, like my thoughts on this matter must not be spoken.
I have come from Belgium with the Queens court and I have been sent here because I am good with a needle. I didn’t want to come here, but have grown to feel at home in the Abbey. I have no political interests. I am more concerned with having something to eat and a place to sleep.
* All the embroiders seem to be from England. I feel as if I am a stranger- need to learn the language and customs…a red thread also in this life. (1959).
* The walls of the Crypt seem to be dark yellow as if the sun is setting. The fire has produced so much smoke that my eyes hurt and we cover the tapestry because it might get dirty. The smell of the woolen yarn is sometimes unbearable. When the room is hot, it stinks of urine. The linen is rolled and kept tense by wooden wheels that can be tightened by wooden pegs. There is a wooden wheel on both ends of the frame which allows a great deal of work to be done at once. The long linen was threaded through slits at the end where the geared wheels were free to wind and unwind at wish for tension. The frame itself could open and close like a clap so we could put our hands under the tapestry to work. We sit on stools. The wooden wheels and pegs help keep the tension-when working on large objects the tension is tighter, small objects, looser. We all have to more or less agree on what we will work on…that is why the tapestry is not evenly finished.
* When the charcoal print couldn’t be used immediately, we sometimes outlined figures in cream (wool that has not been dyed) to save the drawings. This is ALOT of extra work and was only done when the cloth would be moved from one place to another before continuing the work. I get a pity feeling in my stomach when I think about these white outlines (a sick feeling) .
* Because no women were allowed in St. Augustine’s Abbey, we were put in a part of the abbey where the men usually didn’t come- in the crypt. We are to have no contact with them, therefore we live very primitive. Our fresh water is in a wooden barrel which is frozen in winter. I am very curious about men who want no sex with women…it is a strange thought to me.
* The wool is delivered in masses, wagons full of twisted long bundles. It stinks, different in winter as in summer. We take the bundles and unwind them, it takes two of us to hold it. Once it is unwound, we hang it on wooden frames…two wooden frames. The wooden frames have to be able to increase and decrease in size because the bundles are never the same size. There are two wooden frames, one smaller than the other and it fits on the inside so it can slide up and down. On both pieces of wood there are small holes that must be aligned and then with a small peg held in place. We hang the wool first on the bottom, slide the wool to the right length and then peg it. It is important that the wool is held at tension, I think because of the humidity. We take what we need from these wooden frames.
When we have all the colors available, it is easy to embroider the figures in reasonable colors. But sometimes the dyers can’t deliver all the colors, then we have to use what we have left…there is no time to stop our work and wait for the right colors. One year was very dry, we had almost nothing to work with…one of the dies hurts my hands.
* I am not happy…extremely tired. I have worked hard and late and now I have to sleep on a hard matt on the cold floor by the fire. It is too late to return to the sleeping area. I hate the nights alone here in the crypt. My middle finger is bloody from working so long. Tomorrow I will have to bind it in linen with bark so I can continue to work. I am envious of the women with “finger caps”, maybe one day I will have one. My last thoughts are about using the top of an acorn over my finger and then binding it with linen…too bad it is spring!
* The tapestry was never finished. Odo was arrested and Lanfranc was relieved to have him and everything that was even minutely related to him gone. That ment that within hours I had to leave St. Aug. Abbey.
