The earliest European work with which we have to concern ourselves is the Bayeux tapestry.  Although this is really needlework, it is usually treated as tapestry, and there seems to be no special reason for departing from the custom.  Some authorities state that the Bayeux tapestry was made by the Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I., while others consider it the achievement of Queen Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror.  She is recorded to have sat quietly awaiting her lord’s coming while she embroidered this quaint souvenir of his prowess in conquest.  A veritable mediaeval Penelope, it is claimed that she directed her ladies in this work, which is thoroughly Saxon in feeling and costuming.  It is undoubtedly the most interesting remaining piece of needlework of the eleventh century, and it would be delightful if one could believe the legend of its construction.  Its attribution to Queen Matilda is very generally doubted by those who have devoted much thought to the subject.  Mr. Frank Rede Fowke gives it as his opinion, based on a number of arguments too long to quote in this place, that the tapestry was not made by Queen Matilda, but was ordered by Bishop Odo as an ornament for the nave of Bayeux Cathedral, and was executed by Norman craftsmen in that city.  Dr. Rock also favours the theory that it was worked by order of Bishop Odo.  Odo was a brother of William the Conqueror and might easily have been interested in preserving so important a record of the Battle of Hastings.  Dr. Rock states that the tradition that Queen Matilda executed the tapestry did not arise at all until 1730.

The work is on linen, executed in worsteds.  Fowke gives the length as two hundred and thirty feet, while it is only nineteen inches wide,—­a long narrow strip of embroidery, in many colours on a cream white ground.  In all, there are six hundred and twenty-three figures, besides two hundred horses and dogs, five hundred and five animals, thirty-seven buildings, forty-one ships, forty-nine trees, making in all the astonishing number of one thousand five hundred and twelve objects!

The colours are in varying shades of blue, green, red and yellow worsted.  The colours are used as a child employs crayons; just as they come to hand.  When a needleful of one thread was used up, the next was taken, apparently quite irrespective of the colour or shade.  Thus, a green horse will be seen standing on red legs, and a red horse will sport a blue stocking!  Mr. J. L. Hayes believes that these varicoloured animals are planned purposely:  that two legs of a green horse are rendered in red on the further side, to indicate perspective, the same principle accounting for two blue legs on a yellow horse!

[Illustration:  DETAIL, BAYEUX TAPESTRY]

The buildings are drawn in a very primitive way, without consideration for size or proportion.  The solid part of the embroidery is couched on, while much of the work is only rendered in outline.  But the spirited little figures are full of action, and suggest those in the celebrated Utrecht Psalter.  Sometimes one figure will be as high as the whole width of the material, while again, the people will be tiny.  In the scene representing the burial of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, the roof of the church is several inches lower than the bier which is borne on the shoulders of men nearly as tall as the tower!