THREADS OF HISTORY: the World of the Bayeux Tapestry

Rupert Willoughby will give a trilogy of lectures about the Normans.

Rupert is an historian and Classicist. A graduate with First Class Honours in History from the University of London (where he immersed himself in the ‘Byzantine’, or medieval Greek Empire), he is the author of the best-selling Life in Medieval England for Pitkin, and of a series of popular histories of places, including Chawton: Jane Austen’s Village, and the whimsical, yet scholarly Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture. Accredited by The Arts Society since 2011, he is an experienced lecturer, who is known for his light, humorous touch, his love of narrative and his vivid evocations of the past.

Info: In this lively introduction to the tapestry – so much more than the story of Hastings – Rupert unravels some of its mysteries, places it in the context of its age and firmly establishes it as a landmark in the history of Western art.
Commissioned by the Bishop of Bayeux who fought at Hastings, executed by skilled English craftsmen, the Bayeux Tapestry is the last survivor of a vanished art form. With its lively illustrations of languid, party-loving, moustachioed Englishmen, of the cavalcades of noble huntsmen and of the snorting Norman cavalry poised to charge into battle, the Tapestry is the next best thing to a moving picture from the time.

Info: An account of the orgy of building after the Conquest that all but effaced the fabric of Saxon England, with the focus on individual patrons and their lives.
The Norman conquerors of England were the roughest of company, who came not to civilise, but to seize. A mere eleven men in Duke William’s inner circle enjoyed an unprecedented bonanza, receiving almost half the land of the conquered kingdom. There followed an orgy of building in what was described as ‘a new manner’ – castles, churches, monasteries and cathedrals – that all but effaced the fabric of Saxon England. It was their way of showing us who was in charge. In describing the mass of post-Conquest masonry, Rupert focuses on individuals, like the deeply unpleasant Baldwin de Redvers, lord of the Isle of Wight, where his legacy endures. He offers an
insight into their lives – and the disgusting details of William the Conqueror’s funeral

Info: Celebrating a key figure in the age of Magna Carta, Rupert stirringly evokes a gorgeous world in which the knight was dominant. In their coats of mail like silk shirts and their golden spurs, these were ‘the angels men complain of, who K*ll whatever they come upon’.
Reckoned by a contemporary to be ‘the best knight whoever was or will be’, William the Marshal was the classic knight errant, who made his name – and a fortune in ransoms – on the tournament circuit in northern France. Such was William’s renown that he rose to be Regent of England during the minority of Henry III, uniting the nation and saving the English monarchy. Rupert compares William’s verse biography with the Arthurian romances of his contemporary, Chrétien de Troyes, and finds fiction merging with reality. He stirringly evokes a world in which the knights were dominant. In their coats of mail like silk shirts and their golden spurs, these were ‘the angels men complain of, who K*ll whatever they come upon’.

Info: Rupert Willoughby is an historian and Classicist. A graduate with First Class Honours in History from the University of London (where he immersed himself in the ‘Byzantine’, or medieval Greek Empire), he is the author of the best-selling Life in Medieval England for Pitkin, and of a series of popular histories of places, including Chawton: Jane Austen’s Village, and the whimsical, yet scholarly Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture. Accredited by The Arts Society since 2011, he is an experienced lecturer, who is known for his light, humorous touch, his love of narrative and his vivid evocations of the past.

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