Decoding the Bayeux Tapestry: The Secrets of History's Most Famous Embriodery Hidden in Plain Sight

The story of the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry is arguably the most widely-known in the entire panoply of English history, and over the last 200 years there have been hundreds of books portraying the Tapestry and seeking to analyze its meanings. Yet, there is one aspect of the embroidery that has been virtually ignored or dismissed as unimportant by historians – the details in the margins.

Yet the fables shown in the margins are not just part of a...