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    A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry
    A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry
    A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry
    Audiobook7 hours

    A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry

    Written by R. Howard Bloch

    Narrated by Stephen Hoye

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The Bayeux Tapestry is the world's most famous textile-an exquisite 230-foot-long embroidered panorama depicting the events surrounding the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is also one of history's most mysterious and compelling works of art. This haunting stitched account of the battle that redrew the map of medieval Europe has inspired dreams of theft, waves of nationalism, visions of limitless power, and esthetic rapture. In his fascinating new book, Yale professor R. Howard Bloch reveals the history, the hidden meaning, the deep beauty, and the enduring allure of this astonishing piece of cloth.

    Bloch opens with a gripping account of the event that inspired the Tapestry: the swift, bloody Battle of Hastings, in which the Norman bastard William defeated the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold, and laid claim to England under his new title, William the Conqueror. But to truly understand the connection between battle and embroidery, one must retrace the web of international intrigue and scandal that climaxed at Hastings. Bloch demonstrates how, with astonishing intimacy and immediacy, the artisans who fashioned this work of textile art brought to life a moment that changed the course of British culture and history.

    Every age has cherished the Tapestry for different reasons and read new meaning into its enigmatic words and images. French nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, fired by the Tapestry's evocation of military glory, unearthed the lost French epic "The Song of Roland," which Norman troops sang as they marched to victory in 1066. As the Nazis tightened their grip on Europe, Hitler sent a team to France to study the Tapestry, decode its Nordic elements, and, at the end of the war, with Paris under siege, bring the precious cloth to Berlin. The richest horde of buried Anglo-Saxon treasure, the matchless beauty of Byzantine silk, aesop's strange fable "The Swallow and the Linseed," the colony that Anglo-Saxon nobles founded in the Middle East following their defeat at Hastings-all are brilliantly woven into Bloch's riveting narrative.

    Seamlessly integrating Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Byzantine elements, the Bayeux Tapestry ranks with Chartres and the Tower of London as a crowning achievement of medieval Europe. And yet, more than a work of art, the Tapestry served as the suture that bound up the wounds of 1066.

    A Needle in the Right Hand of God will stand with The Professor and the Madman and How the Irish Saved Civilization as a triumph of popular history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateFeb 1, 2007
    ISBN9781400173716
    A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry
    Author

    R. Howard Bloch

    Enter the Author Bio(s) here.

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    Reviews for A Needle in the Right Hand of God

    3.5/5

    10 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the few artifacts that is truly unique. Measuring 230 feet long and only 20 or so inches high, it was designed to commemorate the Battle of Hastings. It depicts the death of King Edward the Confessor, the coronation of King Harold and then the invasion of William of Normandy who became known as the Conqueror.I had high hopes for this book, but it wasn't quite what I was hoping for. It was strongest when it stuck to the story of the tapestry itself. I was fascinated to learn that the tapestry has been used as a symbol by everyone from the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, the French, the English, and even the Nazis. It was captured by the Nazis after their invasion of France, but recaptured by the Allies. It was also interesting to learn about how the tapestry was made. There was a great chapter about the fabric itself, the stitchwork, the manufacture, and the design.Where it lost me was in the subsequent chapters, which speculated about the influence of different cultures on the tapestry. From the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, the Scandinavians, and even the Arabs, the author tried to trace their impact on the work. It was a cool idea, but hardly conclusive, and it went on much too long. In fact, the style made it hard to read in places. The writer used these long, involved sentences that I had to reread to find the verb in all those clauses.Last year I really enjoyed 1066: The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth. He referred often to the Bayeux Tapestry, and I realized I had no idea what it looked like. Bloch's book did have color pictures of the tapestry, but it was too small to really enjoy the detail. So when the author would refer to the stitchwork or the little animals embroidered in the border, I couldn't really see what he was talking about.Overall, I would recommend this to those really interested in the subject, but if there is another book out there on the subject I'd give that one a try first.
    • 3/5
      While this was interesting, as pop history it was ultimately unsatisfying. Bloch spends a lot of time proving minor points (did I really need half a chapter on the longship find of Sutton Hoo?) and leaves some other points hanging.His premise is that the Bayeux Tapestry was stitched as a way to bring about a new multi-cultural peace and ultimately... I didn't buy it. There are many obvious other explanations to his supporting points that he doesn't address.For instance, the fact that the tapestry is vague about some of the stickier points of the story (what the contents of the oath Harold swore, who Edward appointed as successor) isn't necessarily "sufficiently undefined as to permis all to identify with their particular point of view" ON PURPOSE. Maybe (a) it was common knowledge-- it's not like there are paragraphs of text here, most of the narration is based on common knowledge (b) Maybe they didn't know. This information doesn't appear in any other source, either. Maybe it was a secret.But Bloch doesn't address these possible explanations for any of his evidence.I do like his in-depth art-analysis of the symbolism and origins of various aspects of the tapestry, especially as he does refer to specific panels that are illustrated in the full color insert pages, as well as several other full-color and black-and-white illustrations throughout the text.
    • 3/5
      The Bayeux Tapestry is a remarkable historical artifact.  It is the source of much of what is known about 11th century England and the Norman Conquest of 1066.  The cloth itself is 210 feet long and 24 inches high. Technically, it is not a tapestry at all but rather an embroidery, which is a cloth featuring decorative needlework done usually on loosely woven cloth or canvas, often being a picture or pattern.  This particular work of art provides a series of 50 panels depicting scenes of the events leading up to the Norman invasion of England and the famous Battle of Hastings in 1066, “one of the determining days in the making of the West.”No one knows for certain who commissioned it, and there are arguments to be made for a number of different sources in different countries; above all, the tapestry does not seem to favor the victors or vanquished consistently. The book by R. Howard Bloch is very learned, but not always interesting.  The author spends a lot of time describing the process by which the embroidery was created, intermixed with a narrative of the historical events portrayed. The organization of the book was difficult to understand from the audio version.  It skipped from a history of the events commemorated in the tapestry to technicalities of producing the object.  Even the history jumps about without a coherent sequential narrative. I strongly recommend reading as opposed to listening to the book because it deals with a work of visual art.  The author frequently refers to aspects of the scenes portrayed and to the techniques of representation used by the artists who created the work, often referring to particular panels by number, which of course a listener cannot see.  That kind of writing would be much more interesting if reinforced by a picture of the subject, apparently available in the published version of the book.  Rating: The audio book is worth only 2.5 stars, but a printed version might be worth 3 or 3.5 stars.(JAB)
    • 5/5
      Interesting analysis of how medievalists were employed, from the second part of the XIXth Century onwards, by the French, British and German governments for political reasons, to increase their respective influence among European nations and to acquire legitimacy through narratives from the early medieval period. This book has excellent color reproductions of the Bayeux Tapestry which survival tp the efforts of above named governments to obtain the exclusivity of its importance is really miraculous.