A public lecture by Professor Martin Foys from Drew University (USA).
Medieval Research Centre, University of Leicester,
10 December, 2012.
Medieval Research Centre, University of Leicester,
10 December, 2012.
The Bayeux Tapestry: A Medieval Network of Myth and History
The Bayeux Tapestry remains one of the most significant art-historical records of medieval Europe. Its images are iconic, its form monumental, and as a near contemporary version of the events surrounding the Battle of Hastings and the origin of the Norman Conquest of England, it graphically documents a historically seismic shift of power. But this medieval textile also functions as a potent instance of medieval media, designed for a specific communicative purpose, and whose form and function today thwarts easy understanding. A complicated network of historical and cultural meanings arises out of the Tapestry's textus of woollen threads.
In today’s world of digital ones and zeroes, network has become the watchword for technological systems of information. Historically the idea of network began more literally, as a work of entwined material – a silk shirt, a metal grate, a spider’s web, a threaded embroidery. Past and present ideas of networks invite us to look the Bayeux Tapestry as something more than a static, monolithic record. Instead, we can discover within this masterpiece a thick, unruly, and still-growing ganglia of ideas – networks of information, of narratives of space and time, and of broadcast technology. Most significantly for us, its own networked history of interpretation challenges us to review modern mythic histories of the Norman Conquest – such as the notion that Harold died at Hastings by an arrow in the eye.
In today’s world of digital ones and zeroes, network has become the watchword for technological systems of information. Historically the idea of network began more literally, as a work of entwined material – a silk shirt, a metal grate, a spider’s web, a threaded embroidery. Past and present ideas of networks invite us to look the Bayeux Tapestry as something more than a static, monolithic record. Instead, we can discover within this masterpiece a thick, unruly, and still-growing ganglia of ideas – networks of information, of narratives of space and time, and of broadcast technology. Most significantly for us, its own networked history of interpretation challenges us to review modern mythic histories of the Norman Conquest – such as the notion that Harold died at Hastings by an arrow in the eye.
Source: @Quadrivium_VII
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