Blog Posts

Macho Men: armour and naughty bits in the Bayeux Tapestry

1/2/2020

The Medieval Monk looks at some further images from Mia Hansson's replica of the Bayeux Tapestry

Round-shaped and square-shaped armour scales. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

Blessed ones,

In my blog interview with Mia Hansson last week, we discussed, amongst other things, the 'drama' between round-shaped and square-shaped armour scales, and the naughty bits in the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry.

So, very kindly, Mia has provided me with her own photographs which illustrate these two subjects, both in a way linked to the idea of medieval machismo.

Oh, and I asked the other Monk of this website to comment on the naughty bits.

Enjoy!

Close-up of the different shaped armour scales. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

The lady stitching from the upper side of the tapestry used roundish rings while the woman working from the lower side made her armour square. Imagine when they met in the middle! (Mia Hansson)

A naked 'Adam' and 'Eve'. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

The naked woman on the right is very similar to representations of Eve after the Fall, found in the Canterbury manuscript known today as Junius 11, located in the Oxford Bodleian Library.

Here, the Bayeux Tapestry 'Eve' shares the troubled mind of the fallen Eve, indicated by her hand-to-face gesture of grief (a common gesture in early medieval English manuscript art).

The male figure, with his rather serpentine penis, becomes, in effect, a domineering Adam-like figure to whom 'Eve' must subject herself. If we relate this to the overall Bayeux Tapestry narrative, it is Harold (pictured above 'Eve') who must submit to the demands of William as he is forced to swear his allegiance to him after William delivers him from Guy of Pontieu. (Dr Christopher Monk)

A naked woodworker. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

The naked fellow in the lower border is a labouring woodworker; he's shown with his broadaxe. His rather sizeable genitals fit into a repeating theme in the Tapestry narrative about excessive masculinity, or machismo.

In the main scene, above, we see the dynamic posturing of Harold before a sword-holding William, as Harold attempts to negotiate the freeing of his nephew, to whom he points. We can almost smell the testosterone in the room!

Along with the squatting naked man that follows (see the next picture), our woodworker signifies the naked and overt masculinity at play in this meeting. And just as our woodworker labours away with his broadaxe, Harold must work hard in his verbal labours with William. (Dr Christopher Monk)*

A squatting naked man in the lower border mirrors the gestures of the cleric in the main scene. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

Like the 'clericus' (cleric) in the upper scene, our naked squatting man, with his genitals proudly on display, holds his hand to his hip in a gesture of excessive pride (the same gesture is used by Guy of Pontieu in an earlier scene when he is confronted by William's messengers).

The identity of the cleric and the woman, named Ælfgyva in the upper text, has been debated for decades, rather unsatisfactorily in general. My own opinion is that she may represent a bride-to-be to one of William's noblemen, offered as part of the transaction Harold is negotiating in order to free his nephew, as seen in the previous scene.

The holy but proud cleric, brought in as an overseeing figure, together with the exhibitionist fellow immitating him in the border below, signify, once more, the overbearing masculinity at play in the Tapestry narrative.

The women who embroidered the Bayeux Tapestry were no doubt acutely aware of the subjection of women to the dictates of masculine politics, but that didn't stop them from taking the piss out of all the men concerned with their subversive deployment of nakedness. (Dr Christopher Monk)

*Dr Monk discusses these and several other naked Tapestry figures in his study, 'Figuring out nakedness in the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry', in Making Sense of the Bayeux Tapestry: Readings and Reworkings, edited by Anna C. Henderson with Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Manchester University Press), pp. 54-74.

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Rolling out a 21st-century Bayeux Tapestry

24/1/2020

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The Medieval Monk meets a twenty-first-century embroiderer making a full-scale replica of the Bayeux Tapestry

Mia Hansson rolls out her replica of the Bayeux Tapestry. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

Blessed ones,

For my first blog post of 2020, I'm going back to the eleventh century. Well, sort of.

Below you will find my interview with the wonderful Mia Hansson, the creator and labourer behind a ten-year project to reproduce a full-scale copy of the world famous Bayeux Tapestry, which was originally embroidered in England sometime in the last quarter of the eleventh century, after the Norman Conquest (1066).

First, though, let me introduce Mia:

Mia Hansson at work on her replica of the Bayeux Tapestry. Picture credit: © Anna Hagberg 2020. Reproduced with permission.

Mia Hansson, 45, was born and raised in Sweden, where she was a primary school teacher. In early 2003, she moved to London where she worked in dementia care. In London she also “met a man” and decided to stay in England.

“Here I still am, 17 years later,” she says. “I’ve since left the job in London and moved to Wisbech [Cambridgeshire] with my family. Nowadays, I spend my days looking after my disabled stepson, sewing and writing. What’s not to love?”

Mia is certainly “keeping the needle warm”. Her Nan taught her how to embroider when she was just 4 or 5 years old. “Being a fourth-generation needle worker, I believe it’s in my blood. I do not, however, think I’m a reincarnated Bayeux tapestry seamstress!” – more on that in the interview below.

Picture credit: © Anna Hagberg 2020. Reproduced with permission.

With a background in Viking age re-enactment, she taught herself how to hand stitch period clothing. As well as making outfits for friends and family, she has also dressed strangers and sent commissioned pieces to both schools and museums in the UK. Some of her work has even crossed the Atlantic to the USA and Canada.

“I’ve come a very long way from when I made my first garment,” she observes, “not trusting a measuring tape and rolling myself onto the fabric and pinning around my body to get the measurements for cutting.” Nowadays, she uses more conventional methods for measuring, although rarely a pattern.

One surprising fact about Mia is that she is “unable to use a sewing machine”, but then that adds to the authenticity of her reproduction work; for, as she says, “everything I make is 100% hand-stitched.”

It is clear that Mia would have it no other way: “I live, therefore I sew. And vice versa.”

Mia "selfie" with her replica in the background. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

The Interview

The Medieval Monk (MM): A very warm welcome to you, Mia Hansson. I am greatly blessed by you taking time from your labours to talk to me about your remarkable work of embroidery.

Mia: Thank you kindly for considering me for your splendid blog. I’m deeply honoured to be asked and have, of course, set plenty of time aside to answer whatever questions you may have prepared for me. Conversing with you, dear Monk, will give my hard-working fingers a well needed rest.

MM: Bless you! Now, I understand you have been working on a full-size replica of the Bayeux Tapestry. Please tell my beloved readers about your progress to date.

Mia: I set upon this challenge in July, three and a half years ago, simply because I had nothing else to do and desired a project that I couldn’t finish in a hurry. I think I succeeded in finding such a task.

MM: Indeed! It will take many of my pious, contemplative steps to traverse the length of your work when completed.

Mia: Yes! The original tapestry is approximately 68.4 metres long [over 224 feet], and as I’m embroidering a full-scale replica, that’s what I’m aiming for. In December I crossed the 22 metre mark, leaving 46.4 metres to complete. I’ve allowed myself a total of ten years for the project, which means I’ve six and a half years left to devote to the embroidery. All being well, I should be able to manage, but it doesn’t really matter if I don’t. It will still get done eventually. Being rather competitive, I would like to hit my target on time though.

MM: Now, I have to ask – being an eleventh-century English monk, and somewhat averse to anything that might be construed as a celebration of the conquering of my beloved kingdom – but, really, what made you decide on the Bayeux Tapestry of all things?

Mia: Well, years ago, my embroidery skills were noted by an American friend with a great interest in English history, and he commissioned me to make a small section of the Bayeux tapestry. The aim was to make it the way the original may have looked when it was brand new, before any damage or repairs were made.

To aid my work, he gifted me an excellent book, David Wilson’s The Bayeux Tapestry, in which every stitch is clearly visible.

MM: Ah, yes, an excellent substitute if you cannot see the real thing.

Mia: The commission piece provided me with much joy and it was greatly appreciated upon completion. When I, after a number of years, ran out of Viking period clothing to stitch for customers, and I required something to occupy my restless fingers, I recalled the small tapestry piece I had made. When I say small, I mean a 1.5 metre length. If that short section had given me plenty of pleasure, imagine what the full length would do for my mental well-being.

MM: Well, yes. I tell myself something similar when reciting all 150 Psalms every week: the more psalms the merrier – godly merriment, of course.

Mia: On top of this, I heard of someone else who had made a half-size version of the original and, as I said, I’m rather competitive. Why do it half-size when it can be done full-scale, and why take fifteen years when it can be done in ten?

Mia at work on her ten-year project of a replica of the Bayeux Tapestry © Anna Hagberg 2020. Reproduced with permission.

MM: Why indeed? Now, over the last few centuries, various folk have put forward ideas about who actually produced the original embroidery work – no, blessed ones, it was not Queen Matilda – but I’m not interested in that debate today. However, I really would like to know if your own labours have given you any insight into the original process.

Mia: I actually have some inside information on this matter –

MM: Ooh, do tell.

Mia: – being in touch, as I am, with someone who believes herself to be one of the original seamstresses, reborn over and over again. Please trust me when I say that I’ve done my very best to disprove her claim, but failed.

MM: Well, I think I may actually be lost for words. So, pray continue.

Mia: Details she has told me seem to be perfectly sound and not of the kind to be easily made up, although the part about her being reincarnated may be hard to digest, depending on your personal belief.

MM: Well, even though I am myself a devout Christian monk of the eleventh century, I will refrain from judgement. Just this once, mind you.

Mia: Having no issues with that myself, I have chosen to believe her and that has taught me the following: the tapestry was made by women of various ages, not nuns; they were all from England, apart from this particular lady, who came over on a ship with Queen Matilda and was sent to work on the tapestry, never to see the Queen again; and they worked under Odo’s instructions in the crypt below St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury.

Due to the tapestry not being mentioned in any document for 400 years after it was believed to have been created, nobody knows for sure who made it and where. I may as well believe this lady, who claims to have first-hand information. That is more than any historian has.

MM: I’m thinking that embroidering in a crypt might prove to be rather a gloomy experience, but I will leave my doubts aside for now. So, Mia, have you found certain parts of your embroidery particularly challenging?

Mia: Oh, absolutely! I’m a perfectionist and I don’t take kindly to mistakes, not even ancient ones. Because I aim to create a replica true to the original embroideresses’ work, prior to any damage and repair, I scrutinise every detail and in doing so, discover a vast amount of human errors, even a spelling mistake.

Bear in mind that I’ve only completed one third of the length so far, which means there is much more to come. Being of a certain disposition, my natural instinct it to correct the obvious mistakes, but my pledge is to honour the creators of the masterpiece, so I can’t do that. I’m finding this incredibly difficult.

MM: And do you have a favourite section?

Mia: I do, although, to be more accurate, I really mean a motif. There is no point in having a favourite section, because I would only stitch it once and then move on. Instead, I love the ships and the horses, because they make such a great impact with their large areas of colour. A horse’s rump and the hull of a ship are my absolute favourites.

An ornate tree and horses' rumps. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

MM: Whatever floats your boat, to use one of your twenty-first century idioms.

Mia: Ah, a monkish pun!

MM: I have plenty of those.

Ship on the waves. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

Mia: Saying all that, horses and ships are also laborious to stitch. So, when I stitch a fleet of ships, I prefer the horses; and when, on the other hand, I stitch a team of horses, I long for a ship dipping in and out of the waves.

Beautiful, ornate trees are right below the ships and horses on the list, while houses with spindly walls and tiled roofs are at the very bottom. I loathe tiles.

Navigating the waves. Picture credit: © Mia Hansson 2020. Reproduced with permission.

MM: Oh yes, there’s little aesthetically pleasing about a roof tile. I’m with you, there.

Mia: Chain armour is no favourite of mine either, although it can be very interesting.

MM: In what way?

Mia: Well, lately I’ve noted serious eleventh-century drama when stitching this kind of armour.

MM: Ooh! I’m all for a bit of eleventh-century drama. Pray, continue.

Mia: The lady stitching from the upper side of the tapestry used roundish rings while the woman working from the lower side made her armour square. Imagine when they met in the middle!

MM: Oh dear! I dare not think what might have happened between quarrelling, needle-wielding embroiderers!

Mia: Well, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they clashed, because I’m absolutely certain that they did. Nobody in their right mind would accept incorrect work from someone else, especially not when the item is a joint effort.

MM: Quite right! Now, I’m sorry to have to ask you the next question, but I’ve come under pressure from the other Monk of this website, who tells me it’s relevant to his research. So: have you kept/are you keeping in your replica all the original Bayeux Tapestry’s naughty bits?

Mia: Naturally! If a task is worth doing at all, it is worth doing correctly. I mentioned earlier that I painstakingly replicate the seamstresses’ errors, so of course I also stitch what they have done right. The naughty bits are part of the Bayeux Tapestry and they are very much part of my replica. In this sense, my work is more accurate than the Reading piece.

MM: Oh yes, the Victorian replica at Reading Museum! Those sensitive nineteenth-century ladies couldn’t quite bring themselves to reproduce the unmentionables in the borders. I think Dr Monk will be relieved you are being so authentic, Mia.

Now, I understand you take your Bayeux Tapestry to educational events. Would you tell us a little more about this?

Mia: I was six months into my tapestry when I was invited to be the backdrop, so to speak, during a historian’s talk about his own project set in the same time period. I was allocated five to ten minutes to present my work and the audience could view the embroidery during the break.

A year later, I was asked by the Women’s Institute to do an hour-long presentation on my own, from a handcraft point of view. Since then, I’ve accepted private bookings fairly local to my home town, for a smallish fee of £60 plus mileage.

MM: More than reasonable.

Mia: The latest one was in Great Hockham, in Norfolk, on the 19th January; and although the village is small, the audience was large. I spoke to eighty enthusiasts and received lovely reviews afterwards. I have been told that I can be rather entertaining when talking about the dos and don’ts of a replica project.

MM: Ah, wonderful! I will post your contact details for booking enquiries at the end of the blog post.

Mia: Thank you.

Picture credit: © Anna Hagberg 2020. Reproduced with permission.

MM: My final question, in two, well, maybe three parts – oh, and you have perhaps already told me some of this – oh dear, I’m rambling. Anyway, when do you think you will complete your copy of the world-famous Bayeux Tapestry, and ultimately where are you going to put it when you’ve finished? Do you have a large dining hall it could occupy? It would make for such an interesting topic of conversation – though, of course, we pious eleventh-century English monks don’t talk at the table.

Mia: As I said earlier, the project began in July 2016 and, providing I hit my target of ten years, it will be completed during the summer months of 2026. But I’m very aware of life happening around me, throwing the occasional spanner in the works.

MM: Or broad axe?

Mia: Perhaps! But also, because I accept commissions, both for tapestry work and for hand stitching of period clothing, depending on how time consuming these are, it may well have an impact on the embroidery project.

MM: And what about displaying it in your dining hall?

Mia: Living in a regularly sized, three-bedroom house, sadly no, I have no large dining room in which to display the tapestry.

MM: Alas!

Mia: Ask yourself though, would you necessarily want to dine while watching warriors losing their heads and limbs?

MM: Well, perhaps not, but life is tough in the eleventh-century. And we have strong stomachs, you know.

Mia: Ha, ha! I should add, perhaps, that though the violent battle – the Battle of Hastings – is a large part of the Tapestry, it lays many years ahead of me right now.

MM: Or many feet – or metres – ahead of you.

Mia: Ah, yes! I do though hope to place my work in a museum or in a wealthy person’s private collection and walk away empty handed, but with my pockets full of gold.

MM: The labourer is worthy of his hire, the Lord said. I have no quibble, there.

Mia: Perhaps Bill Gates will get in touch –

MM: Does he have a large dining hall?

Mia: Probably!

MM: My apologies, I interrupted you. Pray continue.

Mia: I was going to say that the Bayeux Museum, in France, follows my work via my Facebook Group, Mia’s Bayeux Tapestry Story [details below]. As an eleventh-century monk, you may not be aware of this world-encompassing, virtual reality –

MM: Well, it’s all magic to me.

Mia: – but the group has connected over 1300 tapestry lovers from around the globe, several members of the museum staff among them.

MM: Remarkable indeed! But fully understandable, in view of your talent.

Mia: As yet, there are no offers, but I’m not in a hurry. Alongside the embroidery, I’m writing a book in which I am documenting all my experiences along the way, and I hope to publish it when the tapestry is ready to be sold. Should my replica fail to sell, the linen and wool combo will live out its days in my hobby room.

MM: Well, I am quite sure the Lord will bless you. And I am even more certain that my blessed readers would very much like to thank you for taking time out of your busy life to talk to us about this wonderful project. And, of course, I add my own gracious thanks to theirs.

Mia: Again, thank you from the depths of my heart for your kind interest in my work. It’s been my pleasure to share my passion with you and your blog readers.

If you wish to contact Mia Hansson regarding booking queries, you can do so via email at: mia.sewing.embroidery@hotmail.com.

Mia’s Facebook group page can be found here.

Update: Bonus pics available

You can now see four more photos of Mia Hansson's replica related to this interview. And an explanation of the 'naughty bits' by Dr Monk. Click here.

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Did someone mention William the Bastard?

18/12/2019

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The Medieval Monk meets historical novelist Janis Lyle, whose rich storyteling brings life to the early years of William the Conqueror.

Silver coin of William the Conqueror (William I of England). Coin is property of the British Museum. Picture credit: 'User:Saforrest [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]', via Wikimedia Commons. Please click on the image for further information.

Blessed ones,

I thought it was high time I made contact again with my beloved, patient readers. Your perseverance almost brings a tear to my eye.

To reward you for your fealty, I hereby present writer Janis Lyle, who over the coming weeks and months will be guest blogging about... oh no, I can't bring myself to mention his name.

Well, anyhow, the thing is this wonderful lady is a marvellous storyteller and a top-notch researcher. So, I am sure you will enjoy getting to know her by means of my interview with her, below.

Oh, and she's a trucker!

The Medieval Monk (MM): Blessings, Janis. And welcome to The Medieval Monk blog space!

Janis: Humble thanks, Frater. One can only hope to be worthy.

MM: Now, medieval monks are well known for their discretion and wisdom, amongst many other godly qualities, so it would be amiss of me were I not to find out a little more about you before, how shall I put it, releasing you to the public on my beloved blog. So, please, Janis, tell us something about yourself.

Janis: Like many Americans, I’ve moved around the country. Grew up in Alabama, was a Wall Street lawyer in New York, lived in Arizona, then in Colorado, now in New Jersey and South Carolina. After a bereavement, wanting to get away from where things had been so sad, I went to truck/lorry-driving school in Tennessee and drove all over the U.S. for a large transport company. That was an adventure! A “big truck,” as truckers refer to them, is about 75 feet long and weighs 80 tons fully loaded. I’ll tell you another time about driving one downhill on an icy mountain road in a snowstorm.

MM: Oh! Well, maybe I could tell you about my accident with a dung cart just a few months ago. Not quite as dramatic, but... Oh well, never mind, forgive me; to the matter at hand.

Now, this is a little difficult for me to say, being an English monk from the eleventh century, but I understand you’re writing a novel about... William the Conqueror. May I ask what possessed you? I mean, rather, what inspired this particular choice of subject?

Janis: I have always been a history buff, and William, with his outsized will and determination, caught my imagination.

My novel's working title is The Comet, and you will recall that Halley’s Comet appeared over England in the spring before William invaded, and was widely seen as an omen of impending disaster. On the Bayeux Tapestry, a crowd of Englishmen gaze and point in awe as the comet burns through the sky.

'ISTI MIRANT STELLA[M]' 'They marvel at the star'. A crowd of men point to Halley's Comet. Bayeux Tapestry (late eleventh-century). Picture credit: 'Myrabella [Public domain]', via Wikimedia Commons. For more information, please click on the image.

William was about 39 years old when he invaded England. What came before that, and what could I make of it?

He lost his father and became Duke of Normandy at age eight. From then on, he was threatened, controlled or attacked; his guardians were picked off, one by one – by, in a number of cases, kinsmen and others from whom he should have been able to expect loyalty.

MM: Well, I'm not entirely surprised, but please continue.

Janis: I think William’s perilous youth gave rise in him to a furious resolve that those who made promises to him should keep them. And at the same time as he became a formidable and fearless warrior and leader, he surrounded himself with every shield; for example, gold.

MM: A pecuniary-minded fellow, for sure.

Janis: Perhaps. And I thought that what I saw of the exercise of power in the big-money world of Wall Street would help me understand William’s career. Although New York corporate attorneys and investment bankers of the mover-and-shaker class do try to refrain from whacking off anyone’s head with a broadsword, if they can possibly help it, power is power.

MM: Oh, perhaps they use axes instead in this New York of yours. But I interrupt, pray continue.

Janis: En route to his powerful manhood, William passed, of course, through his teens, which I assume were as hormonal as everyone else’s. Thereby hangs what I think could have been a piquant tale. Accounts from his time describe his courtship of Matilda of Flanders in shocking terms. One version is that he rode his horse into her father’s palace and seized her by her braids.

MM: Ghastly manners!

Janis: In The Comet I tell it the way I think it might really have happened. This would have involved his great strength, already well-developed by his training to arms from age seven. The chronicles say that the highborn Matilda, niece of the King of France, had declared at first that she would “never wed a bastard!”. After the encounter that I describe, she said she would wed no one else.

MM: I don't think I should enquire further as to the meaning of her words. I have the sensibilities of my readers to consider, Janis.

Janis: Let me add, though, that William was apparently so faithful in marriage to Matilda that it puzzled his contemporaries. But we don’t necessarily know every sexual move he ever made, do we?

MM: Well!

Janis: The records were written by monks, after all.

MM: And so would avoid such earthly considerations.

Janis: Surely, any woman to whom William might have said “Don’t breathe a word” would not, if she were at all acquainted with him, have breathed a word.

MM: Well, this makes sense. Only from a licentious perspective, mind you.

Janis: He was a stickler, though, for what he regarded as proper behavior in many areas. Remarkable as it may have seemed at the time and perhaps seems even more so in our time, he may actually, mirabile dictu, have been faithful to his wife.

MM: Well, mirabile dictu, indeed!

Janis: One of your brother English monks wrote about William in the Peterborough Chronicle:

If anyone would know what manner of man King William was [...] then will we describe him as we have known him, we who had looked upon him and who once lived at his court. [He] was a very wise and great man [...] mild to those good men who loved God, but severe beyond measure to those who withstood his will [...].

King William was also held in much reverence. He wore his crown three times every year when he was in England: at Easter he wore it at Winchester, at Pentecost at Westminster, and at Christmas at Gloucester. And at these times all the men of England were with him, archbishops, bishops, abbots and earls, thanes and knights. So also was he a very stern and wrathful man, so that none durst do anything against his will [...].

Amongst other things, the good order that William established is not to be forgotten. It was such that any man [...] might travel over the kingdom with a bosom full of gold unmolested; and no man durst kill another, however great the injury he might have received from him [...]. [H]ad he lived two years longer, he would have subdued Ireland by his prowess, and that without a battle.

MM: Well, I will not gainsay the good monks of Peterborough Abbey, and it does seem they captured that temper of his rather nicely.

Now, moving on, dear Janis. I’ve been reliably informed by the other Monk of this website that you are very good at characterisation, creating believable and engaging dramatis personae, shall we say? Since you focus a great deal on the childhood of William, how have you approached his early years in terms of building his character? What challenges have you faced in dealing with this period of his life?

Janis: William seems to have taken part in his first battle at age thirteen. In attempting to describe that battle, I found myself unexpectedly squeamish about the hand-to-hand combat of the time.

To deal with that, I investigated means of inducing self-hypnosis, hoping that in a trance state I could visualize the scene. The literature, I found, provides a standard script, or protocol, for going about this.

MM: Trance! I am alarmed. Are you some kind of wizardess?

Janis: The trance that can be achieved is quite safe, being little if at all different from the state we can all get into when, for example, we are driving somewhere while so absorbed in our thoughts that we miss our turn.

MM: Oh, we're back to my incident with the dung cart, I think. Sorry, pray continue.

Janis: I went to some trouble in carrying out this experiment: made a tape [readers: a magical device that records sounds] with authentic chant, sung by monks, –

MM: Oh, monks who diversify! Very good, please go on.

Janis: – plus the sound of rainfall, playing in the background as my recorded voice guided me through the script.

At the point where I should have entered the desired trance state, my voice told me to see myself riding into battle with William, observing everything he did. It worked, and I think that my chapters about this and other battles are among my best. Of course I had also done all the necessary reading, both the particular and the general references on medieval combat.

MM: Etenim mirabile!

Now, would you explain how you structure your writing and research? For example, do you research everything before you begin writing or does writing prompt further research? Do you suddenly find yourself in the middle of writing a domestic scene, for example, and wonder about William’s table manners?

Janis: The simple answer is I researched absolutely everything. In witness thereof, I quote herewith the preeminent scholar on William, Professor David Bates, emeritus professor in medieval history at the University of East Anglia, whose William the Conqueror, Yale English Monarchs series, was published in 2016:

I have found it very rewarding to read your novel. For a historian to face up to persuasive re-creations of the people he can only write about in a less imaginative way, the experience is stimulating and sometimes surprising [...]. I am profoundly impressed by your historical knowledge. Your research is exceedingly thorough.

As you surmised, I began with some understandings about William, his contemporaries and his times, and went sideways into further research as specific questions came to mind.

The overall impression gained of the Normans was much the same as the impression we Americans have of you English to this day: ferocious in battle, but punctilious in formal settings.

MM: I will not gainsay those English attributes, though as a monk, my warfare is purely spiritual.

A most important question next, and one I need to ask before my readers find out just what it is you’re going to be writing about on this blog over the forthcoming months:

Are you aware of the full array of blessings from being in contact with a real, time-traveling, eleventh-century English monk? My consultant rates are very favourable, and all proceeds go directly to my monastery and/or my mode of trans-historical transportation.

Janis: As I look forward to writing for this unique blog about significant persons of William’s time, I do offer unending thanks for the distinction of being allowed to do so. Filled with enthusiasm for this undertaking, I shall earnestly endeavor to rise to the occasion. Few in the history of the universe can have been granted such a forum.

MM: I see we are going to be best friends.

So, finally, as you are being blessed with the privileged position of guest blogger, what wonderful contributions to this world-famous blog can we expect to see over the next few months?

Janis: With your blessing, I plan to begin with a piece about Harald Hardrada – whose name, as you know, means essentially what it sounds like: hard guy. His reputed height of seven feet is too much a part of legend to be left out. The record clearly shows that he was impressive. The Empress Zoë certainly seems to have thought so, when he served as the captain of the Byzantine Emperor’s Varangian Guard of Scandinavians.

Harald Hardrada, 13th-century portrayal of Harald Hardrada, from The Life of King Edward the Confessor by the English chronicler Matthew Paris. Picture credit: 'AnonymousUnknown author [Public domain]', via Wikimedia Commons. Please click on image for further information.

MM: Well, despite my initial hesitancy over the subject matter, I think it’s safe to say I now believe my blessed readers are in for a series of delightful treats. These treats won’t be as spiritually refreshing as they are used to, but enlivening nonetheless. So, Janis, blessed one, a hearty welcome and thank you for being interviewed today.

Janis: It has been my distinct pleasure, with thanks for your indulging my American lingo and spellings. [Readers, please note, on this occasion I deemed it godly to ignore any aberrant foibles of language.]

Janis Lyle will be keeping us up to date with the progress of her novel, The Comet. We look forward to seeing it published in due course.

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