STITCH FOCUS | Bayeux

In this video I talk about a famous stitch that you may know under a number of different names including laid and couched work and Bayeux Stitch. I give a brief history of what we know about the stitch and then show how the stitch was worked.

Laid and couched work is famous because it appears on the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry but there is one other early medieval embroidery that it was also stitched on, a fragment from the tomb of William de Calais (d. 1096), the first Norman Bishop of Durham. It is also found on Later Medieval embroideries, worked in both wool and silk threads.

Interested in making your own Bayeux Tapestry inspired embroidery using authentic materials? Check out kits at: https://alexandramakin.com/kits/

You can read more about the results of my analyses of the Bayeux Tapestry in:
‘The Front tells the Story; the Back tells the History: a technical discussion of the embroidering of the Bayeux Tapestry’, in Making Sense of the Bayeux Tapestry: Readings and Reworkings, which can be bought here:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/maki...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Sense...

‘Les six châteaux de la Tapisserie de Bayeux: Une discussion technique du travail de broderie de la Tapisserie de Bayeux’, in Sylvette Lemagnen, Shirley Ann Brown and Gale Owen-Crocker (eds.) L’Invention de la Tapisserie de Bayeux: naissance, composition et style d’un chef-d’œuvre médiéval (Colloque International), which can be bought at: https://www.amazon.com/Linvention-tap...

The Lost Art of the Anglo-Saxon World: the sacred and secular power of embroidery, which can be bought as an eBook or print copy: https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Art-Ang...

You can read about my analysis and interpretation of the embroidered fragments discovered in the tomb of William de Calais in: ‘The Embroidered Fragments from the Tomb of Bishop William of St Calais, Durham: an analysis and biography’, Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Maren Clegg Hyer (eds), Art and Worship in the Insular World, which can be bought as an eBook or print copy:
https://brill.com/view/title/60480
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Worship-...

Other books mentioned in the video:
Traditional Icelandic Embroidery by Elsa E. Gudjónsson (Iceland Review; 1985).
The Art of Embroidery by Marie Schuette and Sigrid Müller-Christensen (Thames and Hudson; 1964).

Dr Jessica Grimm's post about Italian couching can be found on her blog at: https://www.jessicagrimm.com/blog/cat...

Picture credits
Bayeux Tapestry: with thanks and copyright Ville de Bayeux
The embroidered fragment from Røn: https://www.unimus.no/portal/#/photos...
The Clare Chasuble: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O9...
Chasuble: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O36...
Drawing of Oseberg Tapestry: https://www.khm.uio.no/english/visit-...
The folios from the Liber Eliensis (fK014v-f001r) can be found here: https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manusc...



Dr Alexandra Makin
Early Medieval Embroidery
#embroidery #embroider #Bayeux #textiles #alexandramakin #stitch