Posts from the ‘Early Medieval’ Category

maj 17

Vikings at Bygdøy

Norwegian minister for culture closes debate. Viking ships remain at Bygdøy.

The ships from Oseberg and Gokstad are some of the most outstanding finds from the Viking Age. However both were excavated more than a 100 years ago and according to new examinations by conservationists their condition is more fragile than has hitherto been suspected.

After consultation with the Norwegian Director for Cultural Heritage it has been decided to keep the ships at Bygdøy, where they are currently exhibited; thus spiking the plans for moving them to the centre of Oslo and placing them as the star-pieces of a new Viking Age Museum and experience centre near the waterfront of the city and next to the new Opera.

– It is sad to ascertain that our most precious national heritage is in an advanced state of decay. On the other hand it is good finally to get a decision concerning the plans to move the ships from their current location, says Director Jørn Holme.

According to the Directorate for Cultural Heritage this means that plans may be laid for the future conservation of the ships as well as developing new ways of exhibiting them in an enticing way, which may allure new visitors in the future. Exactly how this is to be achieved is currently unknown. The recent report, which undergirds the final decision, is very detailed and the conclusions there (concerning the challenge for the conservationists) will have to be digested first.

Bygdøy is a peninsula on the western side of Oslo and has several museums, like the Kon-Tiki Museum, which shows all year long the legendary expeditions of Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History (Norsk Folkemuseum) and the Viking Ship Museum as well as the Norwegian Maritime Museum and the ship Fram, used by Roald Amundsen. Bygdøy is one of Norway’s oldest cultural landscapes with a rich history. Bygdøy has beautiful parks and forests and some of Oslo’s most popular beaches. Large parts of the area such as The King’s Forest and the Bygdøy Royal Estate are protected from development.

However, there is no doubt that Bygdøy presents some possibilities – both to continue to exhibit the ships in the current evocative surroundings, which are from the 30es (and remind visitors of a cathedral); and at the same time build a new state of the art visitor centre and maybe Open-Air Museum to welcome the mass tourism, which will definitely be the result of the new series on Vikings , currently filmed in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe and scheduled to air in the summer of 2013; and coinciding with amongst other things a major Viking Exhibition in Copenhagen.

apr 15

Girona Tapestry

The Girona Tapestry or – as it is called in Catalan – El tapiz de la Creación recently underwent a massive restoration and cleaning. Now it is once again exhibited in the Museum of the Cathedral of Girona.

The tapestry is a Romanesque embroidered panel from the end of the11th century. Today it measures 3.65 x 4.70 meters; but the latest research has shown that it must have measured app. 4.80 x 5.40 meters. The panel is worked in couched or laid needlework; the same technique which is used in the Bayeux tapestry. The Girona Tapestry, however differs from that of Bayeux in so far as the former is totally covered by embroidery. It is worked in fine wool and linen in a wide variety of colours, predominantly green, yellow, red, burnt earth, blue and white on a reddish wool twill ground, most likely spun and weaved in Catalonia. The historian Palol reached this conclusion, when he studied the linguistic peculiarities of the embroidered quotations from the Bible.

The tapestry records the creation myth from Genesis, organised as a wheel with Jesus as pantocrator in the centre, topped by the Holy Ghost and surrounded by the four winds. At the bottom of the tapestry was originally a frieze, featuring “The invention of the Cross”.

Finally at the border is a menologium, a series of square medallions picturing the seasons and the months represented with their respective “works”; much like the frescoes picturing the agricultural year, which may be seen elsewhere, e.g. in the Royal Pantheon in the Basilica de San Isodoro in Leon in Spain. Another piece of art, which belongs to the same aesthetic universe, is the somewhat earlier Girona Beatus dated to the 10th century.

In connection with the cleaning of the tapestry it was discovered that the wool-work at the back of the embroidery had been protected by hessian. This had contributed to the protection of the original colours. A discussion of these colours and many more details may be found in a recent book, which was published last year. In it Manuel Castiñeiras advocates the idea, that the tissue was never for hanging, but was instead used as a carpet in the cathedral choir and more specifically that it was made in 1097 in order to mark a conciliatory meeting between the Catalan church and the king, Ramon Berenguer II, whose sister-in-law, Mafalda de Apulia, may have overseen the production of the tapestry in the monastery of Sant Daniel de Girona. All this is however slightly speculative.

At least one question begs an answer: Is it possible that the tapestry could have been used as a carpet, considering the fact that this would have meant that the celebrating priest literally would have had to “walk” on God?

In a recent article by the historian, Ingrid Heidrich, this question is not directly confronted. However, in her opinion the tapestry would primarily have been used as a Cortina, that is as a curtain separating the clerics from the lay people during mass. More likely, though, is the proposition that the textile might have been used in diverse ways according to the occasion, the liturgy etc. For instance the sources discussed by Ingrid Heidrich do not specifically mention the uses of such textiles as pallia in connection with burials; which they might have been as is shown in the Bayeux tapestry in the scene, where Eadward is carried to the grave.

The Official report about the recent restoration of the Girona Tapestry

Heidrich, Ingrid: Wandbehänge und Decken des Frühmittelalters (9 – 11. Jahrhundert)IN: Frühmittelalterliche Studien vol 40, p. 103 – 125

Link to the homepage of Ingrid Heidrich about the tapestry

Link to a homepage about the tapestry in Catalan

Read about the symbolism at the official homepage of the Girona Cathedral

Pere de Palol: El Tapis de la Crecaó de la Catedral de Girona, Barcelona 1986.

El tapís de la Creació / El tapiz de la Creación. By Manuel Castineiras.  Capítol Catedral de Girona.  Girona 2011. 

Photos of the Girona Tapestry