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The tapestry as a primary source

To check the tapestry's version of events, we need to compare it with another source - perhaps one with an English rather than a Norman slant. The main written source for English history at this time is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a kind of calendar of national life written by monks in a number of different places, and surviving in three different versions. Unfortunately for the historian there are gaps in the Chronicle, and only one version mentions the Norman invasion at all, disposing of it in little more than a single sentence:

The tapestry, then, offers an early example of how unreliable historical sources can be. It also shows how political acts are justified after the event and how history bears down upon the present. And it shows the power of images - even 1,000-year-old images.

Proof of this power can be seen in the way that the tapestry's version of the Norman conquest is so firmly planted in the minds of many British people. It combines visual simplicity with historical complexity, and thus can be read in many different ways.